Chas, my bird feeder, which is a single 3-pound feeder, is situated 12 feet off the ground and can only be reached from my deck. I made the feeder squirrel, possum and racoon proof by electrifying the shepherds hook post that it hangs upon. It works fantastic and when a critter gets zapped, they never try to get to the feeder again. Apparently, they learn their lesson quickly.

As for Lyme disease, I contracted it more than 25 years ago, and unfortunately, it was improperly diagnosed by the internist who treated me. He thought the bullseye on my leg was the result of a spider bite, and ignored the other symptoms. I went 2 years without the proper treatment and by the time I was properly diagnosed, the disease had already done lot of damage. It now flares up on me every couple years, and I have to undergo a regiment of Doxycycline for about a month.

The disease is carried by field mice and is in their blood. The mouse spends a lot of it's life scurrying around in the grass, where black legged ticks reside (AKA Deer Ticks). The tick only lives 3 years, but during that time, it often climbs upon house pets and deer, all of which spend time on our lawns. Once the tick sucks the blood of the mouse, it is the carrier - not white tail deer. However, because white tail deer often spend time foraging on our lawns and shrubbery, they are easy prey for the ticks. Now, we often provide our pets with flea and tick collars, which do a pretty good job of keeping the ticks out of our homes, but deer don't have that luxury and the only thing that gets the ticks off the deer is the onset of winter. When temperatures fall to near freezing, the black legged ticks drop off their hosts and burrow in the ground to await the arrival of spring.

While we did have a black bear behind our home for a couple weeks, it didn't bother to come up for the dropped sunflower seeds from the bird feeder, but we frequently see wild turkeys foraging on the dropped seeds on our patio. Kinda neat to see them, some of which tip the scales at more than 20 pounds. We also see lots of red foxes, which have a den beneath our brush pile. They had 3 kits this spring, which were neat to watch playing on the lawn. Kinda like little puppies wrestling around with each other.

All the best,

Gary

Gary, go easy on the seasoning .

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/667/meat-and-poultry/game-meats/venison/

chas

Chas, several years ago, I wrote a cookbook with holes of self publishing. Just one of those things I never got around to doing, though. I have lots of venison and seafood recipes in it, and I'll be more than happy to email it to you.

Gary

Maybe getting rid of the possums backfired. They help reduce Lyme Disease. On average a possum consumes around 4,000 ticks each day. See https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/opossums-kill-ticks-inhibit-the-spread-of-lyme-disease/

The possums are still here, just not raiding my bird feeder on a nightly basis. Instead, they're down on the patio slurping up the seeds that the birds drop and knock out of the feeder above on the deck.

Gary