Son to the rescue ... AGAIN!

Lee and I went to the oasis today to install the cup-trays onto the bear-proof ground feeder. I'm confident that now it's even more bearproof than it was! Love it!

Here are the new trays after he made them.

Here he is in the process of welding them on.

And here's the finished product.

When we arrived early this morning the feeder was empty, so the birds were quite frantic during the welding. When we finally got the feeder reinstalled, and the paint touched up, birds swarmed in. Here are a few photos. (There are so many doves and White-crowned Sparrows that the seed hadn't lasted long enough.) We filled the tank with 80 lbs. of seed, and now with the efficient tray-cups below the ports, that should make an appreciable difference.

As for the broken sprinkler, Lee fixed it. He thinks the breaks were caused by water inside freezing. From now on, we'll drain it after use during the winter. 

A week ago the oasis got a nice soaking .3" of rain. It came at a good time because I had just spread the new mulch. The rain helped to settle it down, and now to keep the ground from drying out as fast.

As for my health update, I feel fine except for the sores in my mouth. Blood pressure wouldn't go down so my doctor started me on BP meds (Amlopidine), which is the same thing my sister, brother, and husband all take. I'm confident that will do the trick. My foot isn't hurting as bad, so hopefully, it'll be better soon. I'm thinking that climbing in and out of my husband's high pickup on the days I got the mulch and then went to the oasis with Lee to spread it, even though I tried to do it very carefully, may have stressed the navicular bone in my left foot. Although only the right one was previously broken (my conclusion), the left one hurt pretty bad too. So now that left one may have gotten re-stressed somehow.  But I'm optimistic this year will be a good year.