Monday 7-27 Squirrel in the Feeder

Chasing a squirrel out of the bird feeder

We had another beautiful day with the temperatures in the mid 90's. 

Last night at about 1:30am the alarm on our septic system went off. The control box is mounted below our bedroom window so it was easy to hear. Larry got up and silenced the alarm and went back to bed. This morning he figured out that the air pump was not working and that caused the alarm. The original air pump lasted about 4.5 years, we bought a new one and it lasted less than two years. According to what Larry has read they normally last between 4 -7 years, in the south normally closer to 4 years due to the heat. Since we had two of the same brand fail in a fairly short period of time Larry ordered a different brand. He also took the failed pump apart and discovered the diaphragms were bad. He added a rebuild kit to his order so along with our new $300 pump he will repair our old pump for a backup. The good news is the septic will work fine without the air pump so at least we don't have to worry about it.

While Larry was working on the septic I did my daily challenges and The Event: Hard Road Mini of 5 games. It took me 1 hour, 9 minutes and 59 seconds, which put me in 26th place in my group.

We attended three virtual dances today. The first was a A2 dance called by Joachim Ruhenbeck from Germany. The dance was in two sessions, the first session was 12:30 to 1:30 and the second session was 2:00 to 3:00. The dance had 57 participants. The first hour was A1 and the second hour was A2. Joachim is a great caller. He called very fast and you have no time to think about what you did wrong because you will breakdown. Joachim had two cameras setup so dancers could see him and his wife dance from behind and from the front. This helped us a lot because you can see where you should be. At times by looking at the back camera you can catch up with the moves when you breakdown. We had a great time.

The second dance was Ett's weekly C1 Workshop at 6:30. She had 72 participants. She played around with four couple moves and put us in positions we weren't used to being in, which made it very challenging. We spent a lot of time broken down and getting frustrated so we only danced 45 minutes instead of the full hour.

The third dance was a half hour C1 dance with the Topcats Club in California. Joe Dehn called the dance tonight. The club is a C2/C3 club and meets every week. The club decided to do C1 dances for a half hour. Then take a half hour break and dance another half hour to C2 or C3. At the beginning of the dance Joe had internet problems but once the problem was solved it went very well. Joe called put us in weird position. We danced well and the dance was ok.

We dance in our living room and close the blinds otherwise the light coming in from the window makes us dark on the camera. Before the first dance I saw a squirrel on the back porch eating seeds that had fallen on the porch. I kept an eye on him to make sure he didn't get in the feeder. When the squirrel finished eating he left. After the first dance I opened the blinds and the squirrel was in the feeder enjoying the birdseed. Larry scared him and he jumped onto the railing and ran off. When the second dance came around I closed the blinds again. When I opened the blinds the squirrel was back in the feeder. Larry scared him off. He came back a little while later and tried to get in the feeder but he was unsuccessful. He knocked the hummingbird feeder over. We scared him off and he didn't come back after that. We'll continue watching for the squirrel.

In between the dances I did some housework. After the last dance Larry worked on getting our next project ready for the Cameo. Then I continued watching the fourth season of Psych. I ended up doing 23,000 steps.