Yep, Kendra is right about the sparrows. Oh and as far as taking too long to get the worms out, most Blues need to be trained to go to a feeder. They aren't normally feeder birds so they won't check out feeders looking for worms. You have to train them by putting a dish under where they normally perch, they will see the movement and drop down on it. Once they know you have worms in a dish for them however, then you can move the dish to where you want it.

I feel your pain. I think we live in the same home : ) We did the following - the front and more formal part of the home is now all cream crown, baseboard, trim and windows. We refinished the light flooring to a 1/2 english chestnut, 1/2 paint thinner to get a medium brown tone. The back of the house holds our kitchen and family room. The famiy room we left all oak. The kitchen got a mixture. We first painted the crown and the baseboard cream and left the windows oak ... it looked horrible IMO. So, we ripped out the baseboard and put stained baseboard back in. We have received a lot of compliments on the look with the cream crown. We are happy we we didn't paint all the other wood in the kitchen. We aren't quite done yet, but here are a few quick shots: before and after

I've been using CFL's to light my plants for years. When I first started growing AV's (circa 1988), I hung a couple shop lights in my apartment. But once I got married, I felt that my wife would not go for that (in the spaces that I had to grow in), so I began to use the newly available CFL's in desk lamp and floor lamps. Combined with light from the windows, they have worked like a charm. I use about (16) bulbs to light around 100 plants.

Yeah, we have "invasives" too, but mostly in plant form. We've lived here for 36 years and the guy who originally built the house, planted a couple rows of bush honeysuckle.......which are now thick all over our 35 acres. We've given up trying to control it. And he bought them from the DNR! :( At least it makes oxygen and is habitat for the animals. As far as "invasive" animals, plants, etc., the horse is out of the barn for sure. Those birds you have are interesting in color. Do they cause problems? I'm glad you still have that bubbler. We have an assortment of dragonflies. One time, I saw a dragonfly stuck in a spider's web outside the window. I know it was probably "wrong" of me, but I slowly pulled all the sticky web from it and it flew away. Then I apologized to the spider....... A couple times in late summer, we've had dragonfly swarms over our field. It's sooooooo cool! There must be hundreds of them, at least. They show up in early evening. Yes, about coons and ponds.........they can really wreck them totally. I don't have fish, so that helps, but I know they're still around. I finally quit feeding the birds in the back yard (and only throw out seed in hard times in winters), because it attracted the coons so much they were really making pests of themselves. I know, I know......raccoons' lives matter.........but I don't have to like them. haha Here's a pic of a damselfly depositing eggs on a lily pad I caught a few years back. And just to keep this about birds.........look what we saw in our yard this morning. A turkey! Ain't nature grand?!!