Hi Sid, I get those same questions too about WP's pecking on houses and it's never an easy answer for how to fix it. Caulk the damaged area ?- use Home Defense in the Spring so Daddy long-legs don't crawl up your wood siding to lay eggs? - hang blank CD's in front of the area they are pecking? - or, if all else fails in fighting them, feed them and hang some suet feeders. Oh my, the list goes on.....
However, I have to share one of the most intriguing stories I've ever heard...it was about a guy whose WP's started pecking his house at 6 am every morning, but only Mon thru Fri. It turns out his alarm clock which was set for 6:00 am would emit a "buzzzzzz" sound, positioned on a night stand that was on an outside corner of his bedroom. Sure enough the WP's heard the buzzzzzz thinking there were insects inside but once he moved his alarm clock to an "inside" wall, the pecking stopped. Those darn WP's...but I guess they're pretty smart (or dumb?) too. All the best, Cathy Gagliardi St. Paul, MN ----- Original Message ----- From: Sid Stivland To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 8:06 PM Subject: [mou-net] Fw: [mou-net] Don't let this year's fair experience slip away Incredibly, last year there was only one question I got more than once and that was "What do I do about the woodpeckers on my house?" By the way, if anyone has a good answer for that, please let me know. Otherwise, I am doomed to my stock answer - " I don't know" or "Keep your caulking gun handy". Sid Stivland Plymouth ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Maiello" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 4:08 PM Subject: [mou-net] Don't let this year's fair experience slip away We still have a few prime bird booth staffing spots left for you to jump into and play to your hearts content. I just got the new spinning wheel yesterday and it is super fine! I love it! Attracting kids with this will be like wafting oatmeal raisin cookie vapors across the crowd using a high volume shop fan. It will be fun just to watch kids' eyes scan and connect to find the source of the sound as the wheel clicks around to land on a bird picture for them to identify. Then the joy of having them pic a bird tattoo or choose a poster for just saying the full name of the bird the wheel landed on. Meanwhile the accompanying older kids and parents are going to be latching onto the touch screen monitor and investigating with the MOU website, or play a game, or explore other software on the new computer display system. I don't know if I will be able to truly figure the new gizmo out at first but I got a feeling the people beelining it to the booth because of it, will figure it out and teach me by just watching them. (My 17 year old daughter still teaches me how to change the setting and use the features of my cell phone and I have had the same one for some 3 years - she says to just hit all the buttons and figure it out - yeah right. Here you go girl. Give it back when you are done fixing it. ;-D) For those of you who struggled with the low riding captain's chairs we used in the past, they have been replaced with two gifted swiveling barstools with padded seats and back support! Now you have no excuse except that you just haven't taken the time to plunge in. Come join us and have some great stories to share with your families at Thanksgiving and Christmas or even sooner when you call them with the excitement you brought back with you after your shift. I know I do. Come on! You know you want to! Here's how: There are two ways to sign up for a shift. One is on Google Calendar. 1 Go_www.google.com_ (http://www.google.com) 2. Click "Sign In" on the top right hand corner of your screen. 3. Sign in using "mouvolunteer" as your "email" and "ilovemou" as your password 4. Click the "more" drop down menu item located at just about the G in Google along the top of your screen. 5. Click "Calendar" from the drop down menu. 6. You will see a calendar centered on today's date. Scroll through until you get to August 26th 2010 where you will start to see the MOU booth shifts in red. 7. Click on the shift that you want to sign up for. I find that clicking on the actual word "Shift 1"(or 2 or 3) is the quickest and easiest. 8. Write your name after "shift 1, 2, or 3", in the "what" box at the top of the form. 9. Click "save" 10. Log out (on top right hand corner of the screen). Easiest of all and to remove any possible technical hesitation - and because we really, really want you to come play: You can email Jen or Thomas and tell us what shift you want. Jen Vieth: [email protected] Thomas Maiello: [email protected] See you at the fair!!! And don't forget flat bread tacos, real fruit smoothies, 1919 root beer floats, Aunt Martha's cookies (to give away of course), pork chop on a stick, fried walley bits (yum!), riding the sky tram, riding the sky tram back, lingonberry tarts, roasted corn on the cob, getting the world's greatest veggie sandwich at Nelson's next to the fair grounds SE, people watching without having to move around (they actually parade right in front of you) and of course the fish pond and river trash art - don't forget the raptor show right next door and the emerging butterflies. (I got hooked on watching the x-gen bicycle stunts doing flips and spins just a few feet from me. Didn't expect that to be quite so much fun!) - man! I almost forgot the breakfast and fruit crepes - yummy yummy yummy! See you there. Thomas Maiello Angel Environmental Management, Inc. Maple Grove, MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
