Usually these don’t really resemble my dad but that snow shoveling one: bam. Got him.
megmuoio+10
My dad, whose heart is 1/16th bovine at this point (right aortic valve), is prohibited from shoveling. My mom reported on Wednesday that he spent the entire morning looking forlornly out the front window at the snow-covered driveway and wondering aloud when my sibling would get out of bed to shovel.
NicoleCliffe+52
One of these is a direct quote from my husband, who is also a dad.
EPWordsnatcher+2
Is it the business speak one?
NicoleCliffe+4
It is not.
EPWordsnatcher+2
Drat, that was my best guess. Any guesses from anyone who has actually met Nicole’s husband who is also a dad?
rosalineee+2
I’m betting it’s the bird feeder one.
NicoleCliffe+16
Classic rock, kids. Classic rock.
Doctor Jay+7
Speaking as another Dad, oldies are not at all the same thing as classic rock. Not in the slightest. No way, no how.
EPWordsnatcher+2
WOULD HAVE BEEN MY SECOND GUESS
aravisthequeen+19
My own Midwestern dad has an entire suite of snow removal equipment–snowthrower and several types of shovels. However, many Canadian dads I’ve met outpace him entirely with enormous snowblowers that have headlights and turbo engines and enough shovels to outfit every child in the house.
(Bonus points for dads who haul shovels and throwers ONTO THE ROOF to do the snow up there.)
victoriabarrett+10
When I was a kid, my (really weird) landlord fell off our roof while shoveling it. He landed squarely in the only area of sidewalk below that had already been shoveled, glasses askew. He was all right, so I think it’s okay to say that I’ve never seen anything funnier.
phlippin+15
My Michigan dad did the ultimate upgrade two years ago and bought his own plow for the front of his pick-up. He’s out there plowing the short, entirely-manageable-with-a-small-snowblower driveway every time a few inches fall, which has been happening a lot this winter, to his joy. Last year’s mild winter gave him the sads.
aravisthequeen+2
THAT IS TRULY THE ULTIMATE
icebergmama+40
Hahaha. Mr Iceberg started agitating for a bird-feeder JUST the other day. He’s finally a true Dad.
evieskye+23
What’s with dads and bird feeders? Mine was obsessed. He’d call me at college with reports of cardinals and blue jays. The grackles would start swarming everytime he went into the backyard. He’d always say “The fleet is in!” and expect us to come runnng to watch fat, stupid birds eat. Don’t even get him started on squirrel-proof bird feeders (aka “a wonder of technology!”)
robot_dinosaur+6
My mom likes birdfeeders more than my dad! And my grandma always puts them up too.
EPWordsnatcher+33
I’m sure you mean that your mom likes birdfeeders more than your dad does, but I am enjoying reading this as “My mom likes birdfeeders more than she likes my dad.”
robot_dinosaur+6
I aim to please.
spring chickens+1
my grandmother always put up hummingbird feeders! those are delightful. some day when i do not live in the country… anyone who lives in a reasonable area for this — you just make a little simple syrup on the stove and then put it into the feeder, which has to be bright red to attract them, and you’ll have hummingbirds for hours!
nonvolleyball+2
the squirrels in our area must be super-geniuses because none of the supposedly squirrel-proof feeders would ever thwart them for long.
my dad also developed an unpleasant habit of banging on the window with a butter knife whenever an interloper (i.e., squirrel or grackle–a bird whose name I’ve never heard outside the context of birdfeeders) would show up.
eventually they moved from the house where this obsession developed & declined to put up feeders at the new place. but that was a weird period in my dad’s life, one I’m gratified to learn is somewhat common amongst his dadly kind.
mbculver+2
Holy crap, my dad would try EVERYTHING, including a freakin’ saw blade looped through the rope that hung his patio bird feeder, to keep the squirrels away. Nothing worked.
(Our bird feeder actually does work to keep squirrels from getting to the food, and is thus a miracle of modern technology.)
Nutria
Please tell me the name of this miraculous squirrel proof bird feeder! I’d really like to put up a feeder, but we have so many squirrels in our neighborhood that I haven’t bothered.
shesascreamingsuffragette+18
WOAH! is definitely the correct response to bird feeders *nods sagely in a dad-like fashion*
CordeliaFitz+39
Isn’t that . . . isn’t that a goat?
lemonadefish+2
It is.
MalloryOrtberg+6
is it really
MalloryOrtberg+15
guess I don’t know what lambs look like
NicoleCliffe+33
a coodle-doodle-doo
miprisci+37
Shan+6
A Nubian Goat – well, a Nubian Doeling
blushingflower+24
What else should a Dad be holding but a kid?
CordeliaFitz+1
Baaaaaa-hahaha
😀
deleted1892326+7
I’m getting ready to do RAGBRAI with my dad and I am already so excited for all of the Dad-biking quotes.
Christine+2
Oh man, I would love to do RAGBRAI with my dad! We each think the other is a more hardcore cyclist. He is impressed that I bike 11+ miles a day (bike commuting, woo), and I’m impressed that he does the MS 150. I’m afraid RAGBRAI would defeat us both, though.
deleted2845473+4
My dad does RAGBRAI every year– on a recumbent bike. I’ve been meaning to go with for years, and if I ever do I’ll take a picture for the cover of Dad Magazine.
deleted1892326+3
Dads and recumbent bikes – a match made in heaven.
unshored+24
Get Excited About Retirement Planning: One Dad’s Adventures Trying Out The Senior Minibus
SarahDances+53
“THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SPELL WHOA”
Thank you, esteemed creator of tags.
fannybrawne+10
it’s gotta be Mallory
Lu3+1
YES! I was just about to post the same comment, but luckily I checked. I just knew someone else would be there, too.
toastercat+2
I just figured it was part of the Dad joke! Dads probably spell it as Woah, right?
Canard+26
“Woah” is, of course, what you say to a pharoah.
Canard+11
(That was a spelling joke! I know how to spell “pharaoh”!)
jhsaxena+25
Apologies for my not catching this. I have informed Matt that we are a “whoa” household.
logicbutton+32
If one of the spring issues could just feature a whole spread of dads with baby animals, that would be great, thanks.
Canard+28
One of my fondest childhood memories of my dad is the time he found a baby bird in the grass while mowing the lawn, cupped it in his hand to show me, and then gently and sweetly talked to it while moving it to safety. “OK there, little guy? You don’t want to be there in the grass. Here, let’s go where you’ll be out of the way…”
mcweekend+6
there’s a pic of my dad holding a baby lamb on the internet somewhere (work-related lamb-holding) and the day i came across it was one of the most joyous ever!
leider_hosen+29
oh my god, dads and bird feeders. too much. on a related note, dads + squirrels + bird feeders?
miprisci+30
Yeah, you’ve got to attach this little doohicky here to keep the squirrels out. I made it in the shack, just had some spare parts lying around.
onamission5+5
Doohicky. Doo. hicky.
I see you have met my stepfather.
cuminafterall+14
Are you related to me?? My dad spent countless hours trying to outsmart the squirrels. He strung a wire between 2 trees 20 feet apart, hung the feeders in the middle, and even jury-rigged some “shields” from the lids of 5-gallon buckets. It was unsightly and even then, it only took the squirrels a few weeks to master the high-wire act.
Once he got a ’65 Mustang, the war against the squirrels kind of fell to the wayside, much to the relief of our neighbors.
leider_hosen+17
Dads and squirrels: nemeses since the beginning of time. My dad’s personal quest has really been against the squirrels eating the tomatoes in his garden, so last summer he built an ENORMOUS…cage? pen? wooden structure with screened walls around his small garden plot so no squirrels could get in ever. It is SO over the top, and he is SO into it.
Thank goodness for dads + cars, huh?
greyhavens9+4
My dad’s nemesis is pigeons. They use to nest in the eaves of our house right outside my dad’s window and their noise would wake him up in the morning. There may have been a pellet gun involved.
deleted2845473+19
My mom actually bought a pellet gun last year because a squirrel was eating her tomatoes. It was an individual squirrel, apparently, and the way she talked about it you would think that she was the police chief going after a mobster in some noir novel. “The little bastard got away. Not next time. I’ll be watching.”
leider_hosen+11
OH I FORGOT, the whole squirrel debacle/feud with my dad started one summer when he watched a squirrel pick a tomato off a plant and he went out to shake his fist at it or whatever. The squirrel climbed up a tree and dropped the very tomato on him. He was completely outraged. It was war from then on.
evieskye+15
Despite being a believer in squirrel-proof bird feeders, my dad felt bad for the squirrels and set out in-the-shell peanuts for them to eat on an old stump in our backyard. Dads + baby squirrels = adorableness
victoriabarrett+8
Our neighbor does this, and peanuts they’ve buried whole sprout in my garden & flower beds every single summer.
EPWordsnatcher+30
I GET TO USE THIS GIF IN A DAD MAGAZINE COMMENT THREAD AGAIN:
unshored+12
After many years of failed gadgets, my dad embarked on an intensive squirrel relocation project last year. He trapped the squirrels in humane traps and drove them to a nearby (but not too nearby) park. I don’t know the legality of this, but he reports that it seems to have worked.
Also, apparently if you put a blanket over the cage, the squirrel will quiet right down and go to sleep, no matter how agitated it was before.
Then there are my shouty neighbors who used to have a pet squirrel (!) and were loudly reminiscing one day about bringing it on a plane trip (!!) “Yeah, I just put him in the carry-on with my shoes! He slept the whole flight!”
megmuoio+4
My dad did this last year, but the War on Squirrels continues unabated. I told him that for every squirrel he removed from the neighborhood, two arose to take its place.
He has tried a number of tactics to scare the squirrels away from his tomatoes, including a very realistic-looking snake that lays in the garden and a terrifying owl with a head that swivels alllll the way around. It goes without saying that the squirrels continue their reign of terror.
EPWordsnatcher+2
???!?
unshored+2
I KNOW
leider_hosen+2
OH GOD why would you do that?!?! (pet squirrel, I mean)
Sarah+2
My grandpa has most of his bird feeders outside the kitchen window. He uses the spray nozzle on the sink to spray any squirrels that try to eat the bird food.
miprisci+56
As I get on in my years and advance from youth, I find myself nodding along in agreement more and more with the topics of Dad Magazine. I fear (and… welcome?) the day when I no longer see the satire and instead try to find out how I can subscribe.
PonyAlong+27
I just LOVE this series and if my Dad were still alive, I would be forwarding these to him so hard.
God, I miss him.
Household_Opera+11
I was just having the exact same thought. Even though my dad wasn’t much for snow removal or bird feeders, he’d have still been mightily amused. The list of things I’m sad I can’t forward to him or tell him about just gets longer and longer with each passing year.
mbculver+5
Me too, you guys! He would have loved these so much, and told me all about the snow removal in the driveway of his and my stepmom’s new house. Oh, my heart hurts…
FionaChatwin+6
These always make me remember to call my dad. And they’re great.
Vera_Knoop+20
Overjoyed Dad With Goat is my favorite cover model yet!
dakimel+4
agreed!
deleted2997279+10
I never really thought of my dad as a stereotypical “dad”…but every issue you prove me wrong! This month it’s the bird feeds and the lawns.
littlehuntingcreek+14
Dads and bird feeders! My dad gave us all bird feeder anti squirrel advice via Facebook. It was extremely detailed. If he had been with Eisenhower on the D Day invasion, the war would been over much sooner. I miss him every time I refill the feeder he gave me. He used to take pictures of his backyard birds and send them to me. Yesterday I saw a wild turkey on my back porch and took a picture, then I remembered that I couldn’t send it to him.
anachronistique+11
My dad just told me he wore shorts OVER his pants because it’s cold out. But also that the zero-degrees-fahrenheit cold is “cold, but not REALLY cold.” Dads!
daisicles+7
Oh man, my dad and radio. He used to work in radio and it was the great (but poorly-paying) love of his life, so now if we’re driving long distances, we either listen to NPR podcasts on his phone or we listen to him switch between stations and rant about the evils of automation and Clear Channel in general.
Every time I think my dad isn’t quite a normal dad, a new Dad Magazine pops up and I realise that he really, really is. Oh, dads.
abbeyroadmedley+18
Hahahaha bird feeders! My dad’s favorite gift this Christmas was a new bird feeder with a huge bag of (and I quote) the “really good, top-shelf” kind of birdseed.
sednarea51+8
What is it with dads and bird feeders?! My dad eagerly reports on the happenings at the feeder to me (although I love birds, so I’m happy to hear about it). The latest development was him buying special feed coated with red pepper, which birds apparently can’t taste but which squirrels and chipmunks hate. So far it’s working.
Bonus: his 3 year old grandson (and namesake) is an equally enthusiastic birdwatcher who will sing out various calls if you ask. The big project this weekend at my brother’s house was putting up a fancy bird feeder so they can watch for chickadees together.
LeastBittern+23
The comments on Dad Magazine are my current go-to means of regaining faith in humanity.
There’s so much love – and the love is clear eyed or frustrated or sad – but it’s love for people exactly as they are. It’s very comforting. (Toasties are the cream of humanity, obviously. Obvious.)
cardiganboots+11
“Bluejays are Assholes: Reports from the Backyard”
ipomoea+10
“The Goddamn Scrub Jays Are Back: Dispatches From My Deck”
Bittersweet
Holy crap, my dad would try EVERYTHING, including a freakin' saw blade looped through the rope that hung his patio bird feeder, to keep the squirrels away. Nothing worked.
(Our bird feeder actually does work to keep squirrels from getting to the food, and is thus a miracle of modern technology.)
Bittersweet
Also: Put on a stronger light, honey, or you'll ruin your perfect eyesight!
(Every day for 18 years, people.)
Bittersweet
Me too, you guys! He would have loved these so much, and told me all about the snow removal in the driveway of his and my stepmom's new house. Oh, my heart hurts…
hellebore_
my grandmother always put up hummingbird feeders! those are delightful. some day when i do not live in the country…
anyone who lives in a reasonable area for this — you just make a little simple syrup on the stove and then put it into the feeder, which has to be bright red to attract them, and you'll have hummingbirds for hours!
EPWordsnatcher
OH NO. Slippery slope! Slippery slope! Soon she will discover Pinterest and then she will fall into the Internet Wedding Pit. (Although if her wedding is next month, maybe not?)
Usually these don’t really resemble my dad but that snow shoveling one: bam. Got him.
My dad, whose heart is 1/16th bovine at this point (right aortic valve), is prohibited from shoveling. My mom reported on Wednesday that he spent the entire morning looking forlornly out the front window at the snow-covered driveway and wondering aloud when my sibling would get out of bed to shovel.
One of these is a direct quote from my husband, who is also a dad.
Is it the business speak one?
It is not.
Drat, that was my best guess. Any guesses from anyone who has actually met Nicole’s husband who is also a dad?
I’m betting it’s the bird feeder one.
Classic rock, kids. Classic rock.
Speaking as another Dad, oldies are not at all the same thing as classic rock. Not in the slightest. No way, no how.
WOULD HAVE BEEN MY SECOND GUESS
My own Midwestern dad has an entire suite of snow removal equipment–snowthrower and several types of shovels. However, many Canadian dads I’ve met outpace him entirely with enormous snowblowers that have headlights and turbo engines and enough shovels to outfit every child in the house.
(Bonus points for dads who haul shovels and throwers ONTO THE ROOF to do the snow up there.)
When I was a kid, my (really weird) landlord fell off our roof while shoveling it. He landed squarely in the only area of sidewalk below that had already been shoveled, glasses askew. He was all right, so I think it’s okay to say that I’ve never seen anything funnier.
My Michigan dad did the ultimate upgrade two years ago and bought his own plow for the front of his pick-up. He’s out there plowing the short, entirely-manageable-with-a-small-snowblower driveway every time a few inches fall, which has been happening a lot this winter, to his joy. Last year’s mild winter gave him the sads.
THAT IS TRULY THE ULTIMATE
Hahaha. Mr Iceberg started agitating for a bird-feeder JUST the other day. He’s finally a true Dad.
What’s with dads and bird feeders? Mine was obsessed. He’d call me at college with reports of cardinals and blue jays. The grackles would start swarming everytime he went into the backyard. He’d always say “The fleet is in!” and expect us to come runnng to watch fat, stupid birds eat. Don’t even get him started on squirrel-proof bird feeders (aka “a wonder of technology!”)
My mom likes birdfeeders more than my dad! And my grandma always puts them up too.
I’m sure you mean that your mom likes birdfeeders more than your dad does, but I am enjoying reading this as “My mom likes birdfeeders more than she likes my dad.”
I aim to please.
my grandmother always put up hummingbird feeders! those are delightful. some day when i do not live in the country…
anyone who lives in a reasonable area for this — you just make a little simple syrup on the stove and then put it into the feeder, which has to be bright red to attract them, and you’ll have hummingbirds for hours!
the squirrels in our area must be super-geniuses because none of the supposedly squirrel-proof feeders would ever thwart them for long.
my dad also developed an unpleasant habit of banging on the window with a butter knife whenever an interloper (i.e., squirrel or grackle–a bird whose name I’ve never heard outside the context of birdfeeders) would show up.
eventually they moved from the house where this obsession developed & declined to put up feeders at the new place. but that was a weird period in my dad’s life, one I’m gratified to learn is somewhat common amongst his dadly kind.
Holy crap, my dad would try EVERYTHING, including a freakin’ saw blade looped through the rope that hung his patio bird feeder, to keep the squirrels away. Nothing worked.
(Our bird feeder actually does work to keep squirrels from getting to the food, and is thus a miracle of modern technology.)
Please tell me the name of this miraculous squirrel proof bird feeder! I’d really like to put up a feeder, but we have so many squirrels in our neighborhood that I haven’t bothered.
WOAH! is definitely the correct response to bird feeders *nods sagely in a dad-like fashion*
Isn’t that . . . isn’t that a goat?
It is.
is it really
guess I don’t know what lambs look like
a coodle-doodle-doo
A Nubian Goat – well, a Nubian Doeling
What else should a Dad be holding but a kid?
Baaaaaa-hahaha
😀
I’m getting ready to do RAGBRAI with my dad and I am already so excited for all of the Dad-biking quotes.
Oh man, I would love to do RAGBRAI with my dad! We each think the other is a more hardcore cyclist. He is impressed that I bike 11+ miles a day (bike commuting, woo), and I’m impressed that he does the MS 150. I’m afraid RAGBRAI would defeat us both, though.
My dad does RAGBRAI every year– on a recumbent bike. I’ve been meaning to go with for years, and if I ever do I’ll take a picture for the cover of Dad Magazine.
Dads and recumbent bikes – a match made in heaven.
Get Excited About Retirement Planning: One Dad’s Adventures Trying Out The Senior Minibus
“THAT IS NOT HOW YOU SPELL WHOA”
Thank you, esteemed creator of tags.
it’s gotta be Mallory
YES! I was just about to post the same comment, but luckily I checked. I just knew someone else would be there, too.
I just figured it was part of the Dad joke! Dads probably spell it as Woah, right?
“Woah” is, of course, what you say to a pharoah.
(That was a spelling joke! I know how to spell “pharaoh”!)
Apologies for my not catching this. I have informed Matt that we are a “whoa” household.
If one of the spring issues could just feature a whole spread of dads with baby animals, that would be great, thanks.
One of my fondest childhood memories of my dad is the time he found a baby bird in the grass while mowing the lawn, cupped it in his hand to show me, and then gently and sweetly talked to it while moving it to safety. “OK there, little guy? You don’t want to be there in the grass. Here, let’s go where you’ll be out of the way…”
there’s a pic of my dad holding a baby lamb on the internet somewhere (work-related lamb-holding) and the day i came across it was one of the most joyous ever!
oh my god, dads and bird feeders. too much. on a related note, dads + squirrels + bird feeders?
Yeah, you’ve got to attach this little doohicky here to keep the squirrels out. I made it in the shack, just had some spare parts lying around.
Doohicky. Doo. hicky.
I see you have met my stepfather.
Are you related to me?? My dad spent countless hours trying to outsmart the squirrels. He strung a wire between 2 trees 20 feet apart, hung the feeders in the middle, and even jury-rigged some “shields” from the lids of 5-gallon buckets. It was unsightly and even then, it only took the squirrels a few weeks to master the high-wire act.
Once he got a ’65 Mustang, the war against the squirrels kind of fell to the wayside, much to the relief of our neighbors.
Dads and squirrels: nemeses since the beginning of time. My dad’s personal quest has really been against the squirrels eating the tomatoes in his garden, so last summer he built an ENORMOUS…cage? pen? wooden structure with screened walls around his small garden plot so no squirrels could get in ever. It is SO over the top, and he is SO into it.
Thank goodness for dads + cars, huh?
My dad’s nemesis is pigeons. They use to nest in the eaves of our house right outside my dad’s window and their noise would wake him up in the morning. There may have been a pellet gun involved.
My mom actually bought a pellet gun last year because a squirrel was eating her tomatoes. It was an individual squirrel, apparently, and the way she talked about it you would think that she was the police chief going after a mobster in some noir novel. “The little bastard got away. Not next time. I’ll be watching.”
OH I FORGOT, the whole squirrel debacle/feud with my dad started one summer when he watched a squirrel pick a tomato off a plant and he went out to shake his fist at it or whatever. The squirrel climbed up a tree and dropped the very tomato on him. He was completely outraged. It was war from then on.
Despite being a believer in squirrel-proof bird feeders, my dad felt bad for the squirrels and set out in-the-shell peanuts for them to eat on an old stump in our backyard. Dads + baby squirrels = adorableness
Our neighbor does this, and peanuts they’ve buried whole sprout in my garden & flower beds every single summer.
I GET TO USE THIS GIF IN A DAD MAGAZINE COMMENT THREAD AGAIN:
After many years of failed gadgets, my dad embarked on an intensive squirrel relocation project last year. He trapped the squirrels in humane traps and drove them to a nearby (but not too nearby) park. I don’t know the legality of this, but he reports that it seems to have worked.
Also, apparently if you put a blanket over the cage, the squirrel will quiet right down and go to sleep, no matter how agitated it was before.
Then there are my shouty neighbors who used to have a pet squirrel (!) and were loudly reminiscing one day about bringing it on a plane trip (!!) “Yeah, I just put him in the carry-on with my shoes! He slept the whole flight!”
My dad did this last year, but the War on Squirrels continues unabated. I told him that for every squirrel he removed from the neighborhood, two arose to take its place.
He has tried a number of tactics to scare the squirrels away from his tomatoes, including a very realistic-looking snake that lays in the garden and a terrifying owl with a head that swivels alllll the way around. It goes without saying that the squirrels continue their reign of terror.
???!?
I KNOW
OH GOD why would you do that?!?! (pet squirrel, I mean)
My grandpa has most of his bird feeders outside the kitchen window. He uses the spray nozzle on the sink to spray any squirrels that try to eat the bird food.
As I get on in my years and advance from youth, I find myself nodding along in agreement more and more with the topics of Dad Magazine. I fear (and… welcome?) the day when I no longer see the satire and instead try to find out how I can subscribe.
I just LOVE this series and if my Dad were still alive, I would be forwarding these to him so hard.
God, I miss him.
I was just having the exact same thought. Even though my dad wasn’t much for snow removal or bird feeders, he’d have still been mightily amused. The list of things I’m sad I can’t forward to him or tell him about just gets longer and longer with each passing year.
Me too, you guys! He would have loved these so much, and told me all about the snow removal in the driveway of his and my stepmom’s new house. Oh, my heart hurts…
These always make me remember to call my dad. And they’re great.
Overjoyed Dad With Goat is my favorite cover model yet!
agreed!
I never really thought of my dad as a stereotypical “dad”…but every issue you prove me wrong! This month it’s the bird feeds and the lawns.
Dads and bird feeders! My dad gave us all bird feeder anti squirrel advice via Facebook. It was extremely detailed. If he had been with Eisenhower on the D Day invasion, the war would been over much sooner.
I miss him every time I refill the feeder he gave me.
He used to take pictures of his backyard birds and send them to me. Yesterday I saw a wild turkey on my back porch and took a picture, then I remembered that I couldn’t send it to him.
My dad just told me he wore shorts OVER his pants because it’s cold out. But also that the zero-degrees-fahrenheit cold is “cold, but not REALLY cold.” Dads!
Oh man, my dad and radio. He used to work in radio and it was the great (but poorly-paying) love of his life, so now if we’re driving long distances, we either listen to NPR podcasts on his phone or we listen to him switch between stations and rant about the evils of automation and Clear Channel in general.
Every time I think my dad isn’t quite a normal dad, a new Dad Magazine pops up and I realise that he really, really is. Oh, dads.
Hahahaha bird feeders! My dad’s favorite gift this Christmas was a new bird feeder with a huge bag of (and I quote) the “really good, top-shelf” kind of birdseed.
What is it with dads and bird feeders?! My dad eagerly reports on the happenings at the feeder to me (although I love birds, so I’m happy to hear about it). The latest development was him buying special feed coated with red pepper, which birds apparently can’t taste but which squirrels and chipmunks hate. So far it’s working.
Bonus: his 3 year old grandson (and namesake) is an equally enthusiastic birdwatcher who will sing out various calls if you ask. The big project this weekend at my brother’s house was putting up a fancy bird feeder so they can watch for chickadees together.
The comments on Dad Magazine are my current go-to means of regaining faith in humanity.
There’s so much love – and the love is clear eyed or frustrated or sad – but it’s love for people exactly as they are. It’s very comforting. (Toasties are the cream of humanity, obviously. Obvious.)
“Bluejays are Assholes: Reports from the Backyard”
“The Goddamn Scrub Jays Are Back: Dispatches From My Deck”
Holy crap, my dad would try EVERYTHING, including a freakin' saw blade looped through the rope that hung his patio bird feeder, to keep the squirrels away. Nothing worked.
(Our bird feeder actually does work to keep squirrels from getting to the food, and is thus a miracle of modern technology.)
Also: Put on a stronger light, honey, or you'll ruin your perfect eyesight!
(Every day for 18 years, people.)
Me too, you guys! He would have loved these so much, and told me all about the snow removal in the driveway of his and my stepmom's new house. Oh, my heart hurts…
my grandmother always put up hummingbird feeders! those are delightful. some day when i do not live in the country…
anyone who lives in a reasonable area for this — you just make a little simple syrup on the stove and then put it into the feeder, which has to be bright red to attract them, and you'll have hummingbirds for hours!
OH NO. Slippery slope! Slippery slope! Soon she will discover Pinterest and then she will fall into the Internet Wedding Pit. (Although if her wedding is next month, maybe not?)