I’m praying for you and your mother, precious Ann.
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Aww thanks. All 9 of us siblings were there for her 97th birthday. But now only several of us will be here to take care of her when she comes home on hospice. I have to get my ticket changed now.
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I was out of town, but here is the system.
I have 6x6 deck post, They make circular squirrel guards (cones) for 4x4 post, but I couldn’t find them for mine. Also the cones for a 6x6 would be 30 inches in diameter and look awful. So I went and got three 8” single wall stove pipes and 3 caps. I drew a 5.6 x 5.6 inch square on the caps, and joined the diagonals and cut leaving 4 triangles attached. Then cut off the tips of the triangles and bent them inward. Then cut a slit in the cap at one corner of the drawn square to facilitate putting it around the post. The caps were then attached via screws through the triangles to the post. The top was caulked at the post to prevent water intrusion. Then the stove pipes ( which come flat with a pop together seam were wrapped around the post and with some squeezing I got the seam to lock. Then slid the pipes up and over the cap flutes and attached with two screws to the caps. The bottoms of the pipes got two screws ( not tightened ) just to keep them centered and round. They have been up for 10 years or so. The squirrels tried for 2 days to leap from one post to above the sleeve, climb into the sleeve and on the sleeve. They can’t. These could me made for 4x4 post also using the same 8 inch cheap stove pipe or go down to 6 inch pipe. 2x per year I saturate the post / sleeves with home perimeter bug spray and haven’t had any problems with any nesting inside the sleeves. I believe some if that is due to the sleeves get very hot in the sun and it’s not a great place for bugs to build.
It would cost about $20 per guard to make today with a Pipe Cap and a 24” section of stove pipe. You also need some tin snips or a dremel / angle grinder w/cutoff wheel to cut the X in the cap to make the triangle tabs and some outdoor sealant to caulk the caps to the post. This is the weekend project you didn’t know you needed - get to it.
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Good job. Yeha, those are like what they put on palm trees amd such. I don’t have any posts to put them on. The squirrels have been scaling the walls of the old house I live in becasue they’re made of those old gravel-like shingles. If I owned the place I would definitely make some changes.
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I love this! Thank you for sharing. I don’t have any post that need them but it’s great information. I think squirrels can scale almost anything. Lol. They climb up my brick wall and jump on the window bird feeder. I’m getting ready to mix the seed with Cheyanne pepper.
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Saw a guy on YouTube years ago trying to keep squirrels from climbing the pole to his feeder. Grease, partitions, nothing stopped them. Then he used a piece of downspout from a gutter. The squirrel couldn’t grab onto it and it was too big around to hug.
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Then there’s Mark Rober…
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That’s incredible! He has way more patience or time for the squirrels than I do. And, I really want my bird feeders to be for the birds. I throw out crumbs, seeds, etc. for the squirrels but, of course, they consume and then go destroy. Lol
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The one he did about the octopus and putting it through an obstacle course was fascinating, too.
Apologies to @AnnWithAPlan for going so far off topic! 
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I saw this and immediately was rolling with laughter.
I think you mean Cayenne pepper, but Cheyanne pepper sounds like what comes out of a shotgun which is what I imagined and started laughing.
It just happened I was watching an old Bonanza episode and I imagined someone saying “so Hoss hit em with the Cheyanne Pepper and them rustlers scattered for the hills”
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Lol. Yes, Cayenne pepper. Auto spell did me in again. Hahaha
Squirrels don’t like ‘hot’ and the birds don’t seem to care.
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Haha, I’m subbed to him, too.
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I wondered about that. Will have to try it.
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Here is some good info.
“4 Ways to Keep Squirrels Off Your Bird Feeder”
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Personally I vote for the Cheyanne pepper squirrel program in my vision. I’ve mellowed a lot and probably wouldn’t now, but as a kid I sat in my room and shot squirrels and blue jays from the window with 22 birdshot rounds. Yes, we lived out in the mountains and organic free range squirrels aren’t bad eating as I remember from my last one 50 or so years ago.
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This made me think of how, when he talks about the use of OC spray against a miscreant in a defensive situation, John Correia refers to a need to “bless the deserving with the hot sauce” or dole out the “spicy treats”. 
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I think I have some cayenne pepper stashed somewhere. Going to try it, but won’t eat it myself.
These are great! I do drop crumbs, seeds, etc. for the squirrels but … they are not my friends. They are not my friends. They are not my friends… Just leave the birdfeeder alone! Lol
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I don’t have a bird feeder, because I like to feed birds (or whatever other animal) old bread in the wooded area behind the houses across my street. My dog I and walk deep into the wooded area to feed birds so if anything my feeding should keep animals up in the woods and not encourage them into the neighborhood.
Here is my Golden Retriever chasing a squirrel out of my yard which is on my fence.
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Good idea. I’m out in the country and the squirrels live in the big oak tree next to the house. They loved the acorns and mushrooms until the newer generation found the bird seeds. I removed it before I left on my trip and am considering not putting it there anymore. It was mainly there for my mother to watch on her tablet. But now that she’s home on hospice…I’ll probably do something different. I even put a nice awning above the window to keep them dry.
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