Guess where I found the new bird feeder, this morning?

*sigh*

On the plus side, for the most part, it wasn’t broken. There was only this…

One cable end was torn right off.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

This suggests to me that it was the deer, trying to get at the feed and pulling it down. Critters like the Racoons would knock it off the hook, not actually break the cable. They don’t have the mass or strength for it.

I did keep that in mind when I fixed it as best I could for now.

I slipped a spare hose washer over the loop. That will make it much harder to fall off the hook, whether from the wind, or because a critter is swinging off of it. This also solves the problem of the cable sliding down as I’m stretching to hang it.

You can also see what I did to the broken end of the cable. After threading it back through the various holes it needed to go through, I folded the end and tied it off with some cord. If this works, I’ll replace the cord with wire, or maybe pick up some double crimps.

The cable is noticeably shorter now but, thanks to the rubber washer, the loop no longer slides down, so it’s actually easier for short little me to reach than before. It should keep the loop on the hook, but it won’t do anything about the deer. That is a whole different problem!

The Re-Farmer