Anyway, I’ve been tweeting about the supposed critters living in our attic lately. You see we’ve been hearing all sorts of ruckus and we suspect some birds have found a way in there. While the noise is noticeable we’re not worried about animals being able to get in to the attic.

As long as it is a “crappy home” issue we aren’t worried about dealing with it. As far as we are concerned it is the landlords responsibility to fix holes in the attic to keep the wildlife out and if they don’t care about possible damage we don’t care either. It’s not our house! (We’re still waiting for word back about the pre approval too).

Unfortunately, on Saturday morning when N awoke to make the coffee he found our cats curiously sitting on the kitchen counter staring at the kitchen wall. He thought nothing of it and shooed the cats off the counter since counters and table tops are off limits to them.

While he is waiting for the coffee to brew he hears this scrambling and scraping coming from inside the wall, the cats hear it also and jump back up on the counter to see what the noise is all about. Apparently whatever was scurrying around in the attic of Friday has now found it’s way down in to the kitchen wall and was stuck there.

Luckily N is a handyman type of guy who will dive right in and figure it all out if need be… But before I got up I guess N and the cats sat there listening for the critter for a while before dismissing it and going about their daily business. Once I was awake and alerted to the situation I was very sad for the little thing stuck in the wall.

I don’t know about you but listening to a critter scramble and eventually starve to death over the course of several days is NOT my idea of a good time regardless of whether or not the critter is a pet. When N realized how big of a deal the trapped thing was for me he set out to do some investigations and problem solving.

Here is what he found scoping out the attic:

Here is how the rest of the critter situation played out:

And last but not least, here is the happy ending:

The post Critters are everywhere! What is that in our wall? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Yesterday I tried to go out back and chip some ice off the sidewalk. We have these French back doors that we will need access to when we are moving all our large furniture out of this place. Unfortunately, the inches of slick ice covering the sidewalk and the feet of snow blocking our access to the parking area will prevent us from moving our stuff so we need to get that taken care of ASAP.

I also dug out my un-planted flower bulbs and got those babies in the soil yesterday. I am a bulb addict and I had a number of daffodils that I hadn’t planted yet and I would really love to enjoy their beauty this spring so I got them in the soil and let the chilling/ rooting process begin. I also spent $50 of a fresh batch of bulbs from Van Bourgondien and I am so excited to receive them!

In other news, our car battery is fine so that means we do need to replace the alternator on the car now. We are planning on doing it together this weekend ( I can build computers so why can’t I fix a car?) and I’ll let you know how successful that is, maybe I’ll have photos!

Oh, last thing is that we seem to have another white baby zebra finch. Our first batch of babies matured and went off to good homes and now mommy and daddy finch are nursing round 2 of babies! We started with 5 eggs, one was tossed by the parents and several days later another egg vanished. We suspect mommy and daddy ate it or tossed it so that left us with 3 eggs.

The three eggs hatched and were doing okay but yesterday I found one baby dead in the nest. I removed the dead baby and got to see the feathers on the remaining two babies. One is cream/ brownish and the other is gray/ white. Now the color mutation in these zebra finches is supposed to be very rare so I am surprised that it appears we have hatched another rare zebra finch.

So how is your Valentines Day going? Since it is valentines day you should share the love by heading over to vote on our chicken cooking videos. Give us 5 stars to help us win!

• http://www.wherestheflamegrill.com/video/watch/61
• http://www.wherestheflamegrill.com/video/watch/89 

I gathered from reading my favorite blogs that many people are experiencing storms, power outages and all kinds of craziness.. How is the weather and day for you?

The post A white valentines day.?.? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

With my new camcorder I made a video of our 3 baby finches. Witnessing the miracle of life unfold in our own home has been great! They are all flying now, mom and dad are still feeding them and I captured feeding time on video for you to enjoy!

We are off to go see Enchanted in the theater today. Enjoy the finch video and have a good day!

The post Enjoying holiday gifts and the miracles of life.. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.