To the editor:

Well, I am still here but there really hasn’t been much news on my acres. The raccoon has been thwarted with a large floppy white baffle around the support for the bird feeder. Unfortunately this hasn’t deterred the flocks of Blue Jays who managed to eat 20 pounds of black oil seed in three days. So of course we aren’t putting in more seed until we find a narrow strip of screen with small holes that will discourage them yet let the smaller birds feed.

After the leaves had gone, for a while it was possible to see little bright spots of red berries from our deciduous native Winterberry Holly Ilex verticillata, but the wintering robins have pretty much cleaned them out.

Deer have been messing up the bark on some of my trees as the stags try and remove the itchy velvet from their new horns.

The grass is still green and the gold fish pool has a surface that wrinkles with the winds, but no ice. The solstice is close and I wonder what winter will be like. I hope it will be mild and that you will stay warm and in good health.

Sidney Tynan

Little Compton