"Spring" Cleaning

Not much happening in the garden this time of year, mostly weeding and picking a few cool-season veggies. The weather the last few weeks has been extremely wet and unseasonably warm, which among other things lead to a disgusting proliferation of mold and gunk on the bird feeders. Not good for the birdies - it can make them quite sick.

I took advantage of a recent Saturday afternoon to do a major cleaning of the bird feeders. And when I say major cleaning, I mean taking out the screws, disassembling all the parts, thorough soap-and-water scrubbing.

All soaped up!

I keep a bottle of dish detergent by the water faucet for this very purpose. Well, a few purposes. But it's handy. My bottle/bird feeder brush also lives out there.

Squirt some soap on the brush, wet the feeder, and scrub away! All that black/brown/mildew stuff needs to go, so it may take a few rounds of scrub-rinse-repeat before it's good to go.

Let the feeder and parts air dry completely before reassembling. This time of year it will be at least a day before I can put it back together. Until then, fingers crossed the cats don't go exploring through here.