Tag Archives: squirrels

Instinct

3 Oct

Most of us run on instinct to one degree or another.  Jumping when we see a snake, avoiding dark places, reaching out, rearing back – all by instinct.

Turtles instinctively head for the water. If you see one trying to cross the street, carry it in the direction it was heading, and put it on the other side of the road. Don’t bother putting it back where it came from, as it will turn around and head back out. We once found a snapping turtle on top of our woodpile. The critter was headed for the stream, but came across the patio, got stopped by the railing, and was sitting there, clicking its jaws in frustration. We managed to manhandle her into a bucket and dump her into the stream.

Do you know how to tell a male turtle from a female? Turn it upside down; the females have a flat bottom, while the bottom of the male is concave, so he won’t fall off during mating. To quote our church secretary, God thinks of everything!

Some animals climb. One year The Squire rescued three baby squirrels, who insisted upon climbing up my shirt, hooking their little claws in my ears, and sitting on top of my head! We had just given them a bath to remove the fleas when this was snapped. It’s NOT the most flattering shot of me, but I don’t get gussied up to bathe the animals. For three weeks we fed them a mixture of Pedialyte ® and dog’s milk from the pet store, while the druggist kept us supplied with large syringes.Experts agree, Dani is a nut

This morning we found a little tree frog who had tucked himself into the “gully” between the kitchen door frame and the siding.  Instinct told him to get as high as he could, and here he is.  The big question now, of course, is what do we do next?  I’m perfectly willing to let him figure it out for himself, but I do not think this is the best place for him to spend the winter. I don’t want to harm him trying to pry him out of his little snuggery, but I really think he’d be better off in the woods.

I’m waiting for DNR to get back to me on this one.

Country living is never dull!DSCN0739

The Squire swears if I found a giraffe someplace I’d try to put a bow around its neck and stand it in the stair well.

He’s probably right.

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How Dry I Am!

30 Sep

Today is the last day of September, and we have not had a drop of rain all month.  The spring beside the house has gone dry, and it is possible to walk directly across the yard from the front door to the mailbox on dry land.  ᎠᏍᏆᏂᎪᎯᏍᏗ  ᏂᏛᎴᏅᏓ  ᎠᏍᏆᏂᎪᎯᏍᏗ Wonder of wonders, and all that jazz.

Farmers are really having a hard time. This is harvest season, and the crops need water or the vegetables will wither on the vine. Tomatoes, eggplant, squash, even string beans look old and tired.

The oddest thing, which both The Squire and I mentioned this morning, is that we have almost no squirrels. Normally, when I go out in the morning to fill the feeders, there are at least a half dozen of them waiting for me, and within a few minutes there’s a gray blanket all over the lawn.  For at least the last ten days we might see a half dozen all day, all stocking up for the winter ahead. Maybe they are suffering as much as the plants.

We may not have rain, but boy! do we have acorns. I’ve been collecting them in used zip bags and stashing them in the freezer. We all have our own ways of preparing for the winter.

 

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We All Scream For Ice Cream

27 May

A week or so back I found a freezer-burned carton of ice cream on the bottom shelf – Pumpkin Pie flavor, if that gives you any idea how old the stuff was.

I took it out back and left it beside the dish we use to feed the foxes. The carton was gone the next day;  not surprising, as they will frequently carry off plastic carry-out trays or the like to eat at their leisure. Today I had a bunch of stale bread to toss out to the critters – deer will eat bread, as do the birds and squirrels – and as I was coming back I noticed a flash of orange in one of the trees.

Apparently the raccoons had taken the carton away and climbed the tree to eat the ice cream in peace and quiet. The tree is about thirty feet from the dish so I wasn’t likely to see it there, and it was also on the back side of the tree. The carton was in the mulberry tree on the far right of the photo, about four feet off the ground. (We feed the foxes in an old angel food pan, dropped over a stake pounded into the ground. Food dishes are among the things they have carted off, and we got tired of searching for their dish.)

Can’t blame them.  I feel the same way about ice cream. Keep your paws off!

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As Bad as People

2 Nov

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI use milk cartons to hold my clothes pins on the line. They are free, easy to obtain, and recyclable.  People who know me understand all of these things.

This morning two of our squirrels got into a raging fist fight, chasing each other all over the yard, and up and down the trees. They ended in a large oak tree beside the carport, and from there out across the clothesline. One of them hopped into one of my milk carton-cum-clothes pin holder, and the other jumped into the one beside it.  They continued their slug fest from these perches until one of the handles broke, and the squirrel fell onto the grass.

The other sat in his little sky-bucket and yelled “nanner-nanner”.

I swear, I couldn’t possibly make this up.

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The Party’s Over

22 Apr

When I went to fill the feeders this morning I discovered the front porch wide open, and about a dozen squirrels chowing down on peanuts.  The “regular” birdseed is in a galvanized trash can, so they  couldn’t get to it, and they had not been interested in the finch food, but – boy, howdy! – did they have a blast with the peanuts.

When Blazer and I went out to feed the fish last night, the dog found a snapping turtle headed for the pond.  I  called The Squire out to take care of that little problem and he had come out through the front door, and then inside via back door, leaving the slider wide open in the process.

Nothing a good vacuum and wipe down couldn’t fix. That and a new metal bucket with a secure lid.

 

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Unsafe at Any Speed

24 Feb

On Wednesday, The Squire and I worked out at the “Y”, and I came home without my keys. I not only don’t like to wear a coat (although Heaven knows I haven’t needed one this year!), but I don’t like to carry a purse, especially if I’m with my husband. So I carried my keys with the pass card for the gym, and put them on the shelf so I could exercise without knocking somebody out with them.

We got an email that evening saying they’d been found and turned in, so the dear man had to go up on Thursday morning and retrieve them.

Took a shower that night and after I’d rinsed the shampoo out of my hair I poured some conditioner into my palm and industriously rubbed it into – my face!

This morning the dog began barking at some unseen object outside, so I stepped onto the patio to see what had caught his attention.  I heard a noise that sounded for all the world as if a baby was crying.

“Oh great. It’s bad enough they bring us cats and dogs. Now they’ve left us a kid!”

The worst of it was that I never skipped a beat. It was just the way things go around here. It turned out to  be an irate squirrel, sitting in back of the cat, who paid him no mind whatsoever, pitching a fit because he was hungry. I called Eddie into the house and tossed a handful of peanuts across the concrete.

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Bang, Bang!

12 Dec

The Open House yesterday afternoon went very well.  We had a good crowd passing through – all of them old friends, but quite a few of them had never been here before. My nephew and his family came up from Severn, which was really nice, as we haven’t seen them for a while. I completely dropped the ball on providing something for their two little boys to do, though. We haven’t had children under the age of seven for eons!  I did move things around so they could play with one of my dollhouses, and they were really, really careful with it. Their daughter is eighteen months old, and she and Blazer had a “hmm, what is this” going for a while. Both of them interested, but wary. The dog is very gentle, but his tail can do a lot of unintended damage!

Needless to say, by the end of the evening, The Squire and I were both completely wiped out and collapsed into bed fairly early. Around three in the morning we were jolted out of a sound sleep by two VERY loud bangs. I had opened the bedroom window, but had forgotten to brace the sash with a stick we keep in the sill for exactly that purpose. First the inner window fell down and then the outer frame joined it. Boy! Talk about being lifted right out of bed!

This morning I was playing pick up in the living room when something very large crashed into the sliding door on the front porch. I looked out the window and saw a red-tailed hawk perched in the tree beside the house, so I opened the door to survey the damages. The hawk immediately flew away, and didn’t have anything in his talons. When I stepped outside I could hear some squirrel-sized curses wafting up from the drain beside the flower bed. A few moments later, said squirrel popped out the other end, still muttering under his breath.

Obviously, the hawk had swooped down for lunch but the squirrel had ducked out of the way too quickly for the bird to change course. Gives an entirely new meaning to the expression  “hit with a fowl ball”.

Oh! Does anybody want some cookies? We have loads left over!

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Odds and Ends

10 Apr

Yesterday, The Squire and I spent most of our time ironing curtains and dust ruffles(me) and shortening and painting doors (him).

When I was working on the altar on Friday, I looked at the wrong chart and didn’t think we had flowers for Sunday, but later, while I was chatting with the secretary, I noticed the bulletin that we did indeed have flowers. In my panic I thought it was Saturday, but it was – thank Heaven! – only Friday, so I grabbed the liners and hustled up to the florist. I went up Saturday morning to collect the flowers, and then swung by church to put them on the side tables. I’d taken Blazer with me – I’ve developed a real phobia about driving alone – and he went into church with me. He has been trained not to go onto the chancel steps, but he wanders around and inspects things.

The Cub Scouts were having an indoor carnival and he went over and put his nose against the glass in the narthex doors. I could hear the boys yelling, “The dog is back! The dog is back!” so of course we had to go in and see what was going on over there. The Cubs normally meet on Monday nights and I used to go to knitting on Mondays, so Blazer was quite a popular figure over there. He wandered around, getting head scratches and belly rubs, and then we came on home.

When I got back, The Squire said he’s been painting on the front porch when a squirrel came up to the door, looked at him, looked at the seed bin, and then over his shoulder. The critter did this a couple of times, and then stood up, put his paws on the glass and started giving The Squire a real talking-to. “Table five is completely out of seed. The service in this place is dreadful. What does a squirrel have to do to get waited on around here?” The Squire got a scoop of seed and opened the door; he said the animal only went about six feet, and as soon as the seed hit the ground, he was on it. He didn’t even wait for the door to close!

About 4:00 or so,  my girlfriend and her husband (or, as The Squire phrases it, my boyfriend and his wife) swung by to ask if I wanted to ride to Costco with them. Why not? The Squire needed sodas and I was completely out of yeast, so I went along. I also picked up some Lutein for him and a bag of dried figs for myself. Managed to get out of the store for under $40.

 

 

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And So It Begins

22 Jan

It was cloudy this morning, but unless you’d been following the weather reports, nothing unusual. Except that the squirrels were out in force, scouring the ground for every possible shred of food.  There are eight in this picture, plus three more in the tree.

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Chowing Down

And this fellow, trying to empty the “Squirrel Proof” bird feeder. We went up to the Y after breakfast, and when we came home, the feeder had been unscrewed – again – and was on the ground. The little buggers jump up onto the suet feeder and scamper across the top, then hang upside down and shovel the seed onto the ground.

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Squirrel Guard? What’s that?

It started to snow about 4 PM, and is supposed to continue for the next 24 hours, at least. Church has already been cancelled, and since our policy is to remain closed when Harford County school are shut down, we may not even have service on Tuesday evening.

We were supposed to go to a viewing tomorrow evening and a funeral on Sunday, but both of those have been pushed back a day, with a suggestion we call to double check before we sally forth.

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Happy New Year!

1 Jan

I worked the 18th and 21th, plus the four days this week, and I think it will take me a week to catch up on my sleep. I get home at 6:00, and the Squire has dinner ready, but if I don’t post this before 7, it shows up as the next day, so it doesn’t get done.

We went to bed around 10:30 last night; I was vaguely aware of noise at midnight, but not the sort of full-scale blowout we used to have before the sheriff moved in across the street. The Squire got up this morning at 7 AM, but I didn’t wander down until 9:30. While I was waiting for the kettle to boil, I went out to feed the squirrels, and The Squire followed me out. He joked that I needed to watch out for the “mad squirrel”; he’d brought out some stale muffins and while he was breaking them up to toss across the yard a squirrel had come over, climbed up his pants leg, and grabbed a hunk of muffin right out of his hand, and ran off with it.

“Oh! Did you already fill the feeders, then?”

Blank look. “I never thought of it.” Sometimes I wonder about that man…

By Wednesday, the dog had gotten used to the fact that I wasn’t home during the day, but he was waiting at the kitchen door every night when I came in. We normally feed him three small meals a day, at the end of the dining room table, and he won’t start eating until we have said grace. This evening, we ate at the computer desk, catching up on things that had been done and left undone during the last week or so. Blazer wandered in with his dish in his mouth, so I went out and fed him, then sat back down at the desk. A few moments later, he was back in the den, without the dish, but pawing at our chairs. Once he’d gotten our attention, he went back out and sat at the end of the table, next to his dish, looking back and forth between us and his food.

The Squire turned around and looked at the dog, then raised his hand in blessing, and said, “Lord bless this food to the dog’s use. Amen”

And Blazer settled down to eat.

 

 

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