ONGOING BATTLE WITH `SCIURUS CAROLINESTS'

Some of my friends gave me some advice about how to keep the squirrels away from my suspended bird feeder. "Just hang it with nylon fishing line," more than one advised. "Tie some bolts at one end of the line and toss it over the limb." It all sounded so easy.

I knew I had nylon fishing line somewhere. "Where, oh, where? I haven't been fishin' in many a year," I sang as, later on, with flashlight in hand to beam into dark corner cabinets, I set forth down the basement steps.

From an old cabinet, stricken with arthritis of the frames, I first drew out a cigar box of little put-away-things-because-you-might-need-them-someday. There was a ball-peen hammer head, some brass draw pulls, two or three rusty hand files, a double convexed round piece of magnifying glass.

Next I removed some steel traps, a box of assorted fishing lures, an old Velvet Tobacco tin can full of lead sinkers. Then there was a glass minnow trap. I must be getting close, I thought.

Back of the minnow trap was a big wad of trout line intertwined with nylon fishing line. Shame on the one who had put this away in such a mess, fishhooks still attached. To extricate a length of the nylon line was not a job for standing up in the semi-darkness of the basement. I grasped the whole mess of it (Ouch!) and went upstairs. Better put some Campho-Phenique on the "ouch" place before proceeding, I cautioned myself, and did so.

That done, I sought the shade of the oak where the bird feeder was suspended, two furry tails dangling, and began to untangle a suitable length of line. When impossibility stared me in the face, I went for the scissors, thankful that I still remembered the knot I needed to tie so as to piece the nylon line. Not easy.

It was hot. Ninety degrees, and I didn't want to search for a suitable number of bolts to tie on to one end of the line and "just toss if over the limb." Maybe a brick bat from the garage? A rock from the Indian rock pile? My shoe? Someone down in the park was hammering on something. The ball-peen hammer head I had found hammered its way into my brain. I knew I'd find a use for it some day if I saved it.

It was so easy to thread the fishing line through the hole where the hammer handle used to be.

I tried the over-the-limb tossing, which seemed to be so easy for my friends. I think they must have been ex-baseball pitchers. The hammer head kept coming dangerously back before it reached the chosen limb.

Well, just two steps up on the ladder won't hurt. Maybe three. I know I'm going to get little sympathy if I fall from a ladder. Imagine, at her age! Crazy woman!

I looked around to see if anyone was watching, ascended the three steps, threw the hammer head accurately, while letting the line slip through my other hand. It went fast, caused a burn. Ouch! I rubbed it against the previously Campho treated other spot, hopeful that some would rub off.

The rest went fast. I tied the feeder so it would be a suitable height for me to fill, filled it, and sat back to enjoy my accomplishment. The feeder was a little lopsided. I sat for a while longer, wondering how I might cure that. Sweat, running down my face, did nothing to alleviate my unhappiness about the uneven hanging.

The hammering was still going on in the park. Ah, yes, the hammer head. I searched in the grass for it, laid it on the little banistered walkway around the side of the feeder that tilted up. It made a perfect balance.

So far, so good. I eye-measured the distance from another, slightly higher limb and farther away, trying to assess whether or not a squirrel could jump from it to the top of the feeder.

If that happens, maybe, down in the basement, there are some old, empty coffee cans I can tie together, four or five, and dangle them at the angle from which sciurus carolinests must jump.

Stay tuned.

REJOICE!