Tag Archives: squirrels

Gift

The Birdhouse Chick

In the space of a 5 minute slice of my day, I was treated to squirrels on our bottle bird feeder and our regular hanging bird feeder on our deck,

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then a roadrunner on the bottle feeder – coming to sit on it twice,

Southwest Desert Gardener

and then the driveway detector going off, telling me there was something in the driveway. It turned out to be several deer toward the bottom.

DarcyinTN on Flickr.com

These photos I found just give you an idea of the gift I received.

I felt rich today.

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Squirrely

Cynthia Bobbett
Daniel(@DK_Inside_)-twitter.com
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Sue Capuano Art-fineartamerica.com
weheartit.com

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…

Harvard Business Review – Getty Images

We are now in what promises to be a flurry of activity here. All of it exciting, but a bit overwhelming, as well.

THING ONE – We received a quote from a really nice man who came to our home yesterday via Home Advisor to see the work we needed to have done. We need our porch ceiling torn out and redone so that it doesn’t end up falling on us while we’re eating lunch out there. Our home is over 30 years old. We had it built in 1987. We are learning that 30 years is the limit on several things, the porch ceiling being only ONE of those things, particularly when a squirrel family has gotten into the attic.

This man and his brother will replace the porch ceiling for us. They will also seal the place in the roof soffit where the squirrels are getting in. A third part of the job will be installing the pair of new shutters we got to replace the one that simply fell off the front of our house and shattered over the winter. I did not have ANY interest in my husband trying to install the shutters on top of a two-story ladder, so this is a really important part of the work we wanted done.

He said the contract for another job starts Monday, so he will work our stuff in before he starts that! He will be here at noon with the paperwork:0)

THING TWO – we have been watching with great interest the activity surrounding fiber optic cable going in. We have had people all over the place working on poles, asking for access to places around us, etc. We received an email this morning allowing us to order the new fiber optic Internet service, plus a TV service, plus a phone service. We filled out a form and someone will call us to answer questions and do some scheduling. If we sign up for this, it will mean a LOT of changes. That’s good, but it strains our brains a bit to make sense of what needs to change, how to affect that change, and the time frame. A welcome character-building exercise for sure. (This from two old fogies who FINALLY gained access to a new TV prescription channel, after having to buy and install a Roku stick, get passwords to work, etc.)

OTHER STUFF – meanwhile, the valve we ordered for the propane heater in the shop is supposed to be delivered today. Hopefully, installation of that will solve the problem of not being able to light the pilot light out there. My husband made up a new PVC pipe with valve to replace the one we found broken into three pieces over the winter. It is now attached to the brick planter. All that is needed is holes drilled. And then we’ll test the irrigation system for the yard to check for blowouts and leaks. Things are finally coming together after the ‘revenge of the gremlins’ or whatever we’ve been experiencing lately. The list is getting shorter!

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Thoughts on a Sunday 7-5-2020

My husband and I had a wonderful celebration for Independence Day.

Chicago Steak Company

It rained off and on all day, but then cleared up. We started the grill on the deck and sat outside, waiting for the coals to be ready. (The potatoes were in the oven).  It started to rain. It was a quiet rain, though, so we held our breaths, crossed our fingers and hoped we could get the steaks cooked. (I was ready if we had to use the broiler inside, but they taste better with the charcoal flavor.)

The rain stopped, and then –

 

 

It didn’t last long, but the rainbow was absolutely beautiful.

About the same time –

Video Hive

I didn’t get pics of our own, but this gives you an idea. He – or they – (we’re not sure if we had one or two) kept coming back over and over until he/they were tanked up. :0)

We enjoyed a bird singing, and MANY birds coming and going from our feeders.  A road runner ran across the yard, and a white-tailed bunny showed up briefly.

We had two squirrels – one on the hanging feeder and the other at the feeder that has a gallon bottle in the window – scurrying around.

Amber, our 95-pound yellow lab, was happily checking out everything in the yard, playing in the rain, coming back up on the deck to be with us, and then doing it all over again.

We went in and ate our dinner, hoping our neighbors would shoot off fireworks later.

The rains came again – really HEAVILY this time – about 8:45. I thought that was the end of any chance of fireworks. But, as we were watching a movie (we are enjoying a marathon of our Jason Bourne movies), we heard the distinctive sound. We went out to the deck. The moon was coming out of the clouds – gleaming brightly. And the fireworks began!

 

BestAnimations.com

We watched them for several minutes before going inside to continue with our movie.

What a wonderful celebration we had!

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Thoughts on a Tuesday – June 23, 2020

Our forecast is ‘Downpours this morning and scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Chance of rain 100%”

 

Jimmy Nyakora via Scene and Heard – Match Box Quotes

Other than the downpours and thunderstorms, I’m hoping for a quiet rain. I have no big projects for the day. I wanted to finish weeding my veggie garden, but it looks like that won’t be in the cards today. My husband planned to mow the lawn, but that probably won’t be happening, either. All that will be waiting for us when Mother Nature decides to cooperate.

Our DirecTV system has a nice feature where you can pause a program and it will record it for you until you want to resume watching later. This causes a ‘buffer’ to form, where you can then fast-forward through commercials. We are totally addicted to this feature.

My husband and I have a running ‘discussion’ about why the feature doesn’t always work the way he thinks it should. It will hold about 40 minutes on pause, and then it starts playing. (Hopefully, we have it muted, or else it sounds like the TV is possessed, coming on by itself and talking erupting in the living room while we are in our home office.) Either way, the buffer is filled up and the TV plays. Sometimes the buffer is retained and sometimes not. We cannot see a pattern.

It REALLY irks my husband. He is careful to set it up at night so that we have a full buffer in the morning and he is able to zip through commercials to his heart’s content.  When, for some unknown reason, gremlins have done their work and the buffer is ‘gone,’ he gets frustrated and angry. Our ‘discussions’ haven’t solved the problem. He refuses to call DirecTV to try to get an answer. And so, the ‘discussions’ continue…

We MAY have another raccoon. This would be #6 this season.

Getty Images

The sweet things won’t share, or we wouldn’t have a problem. They eat EVERY seed in EVERY feeder, and many time trash the feeder in their efforts to chow down. My husband will set our humane trap tonight and we’ll see if we capture another member of this year’s family to relocate with the others.

Foundation Pest Control

I mentioned that it MIGHT be the squirrel family we have this year. Yesterday I saw THREE squirrels at once being quite active and athletic on the feeders. That’s the first time I have seen three at one time. One was sitting in the shovel bird feeder, eating the seeds we leave there every day. A second was at the main bird feeder, hanging from his back legs as he avidly ate as much as possible using both hands to grab seeds. A third was in the gallon-sized clear bottle that sits on another feeder in our window. He was all the way inside the bottle, filling his cheeks.

Mourning Doves-Shutterstock.com

We usually have a pair of doves who sit on one of the electrical lines that cross the back of our yard. I haven’t seen them lately. I hope they are okay.

I hope that you are having a really nice day.

 

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Thoughts on a Monday 3-16-2020

Photo via Jeff Jett – LinkedIn

We enjoyed watching what could be a relative of this cute little fellow leap from a hanging bird feeder on the deck to the shovel bird feeder, and then around via the railing to the gallon glass bottle and wood feeder we have attached to the grill on the outside of the dining area window. He kept flipping his tail. I’m not sure what that signifies, but he sure was a busy little critter, checking everything out.

We went for a quick shot at the doctor’s office to quick stops at two groceries to replenish supplies and are now home for the day. Even with the schools closed, starting today, there wasn’t much traffic on the road.

A new thing greeted us at the clinic – a nurse was there to take our temperature outside before we were admitted inside. Then, they had rearranged the seating so that there were two chairs together, but they were far apart from another couple of chairs, all around the room, giving people plenty of space. I was glad to see these precautions.

 

 

I am thinking about ordering one of these on the net so that I can quit touching my face. I seem to be obsessive about touching my face, and I never realized it before! I’m constantly, scratching, touching, rubbing my eyes, pulling on my nose….. It’s either a funnel like this or I may start wearing mittens….

We are in the ‘high risk group’ for the virus. My husband continues to deny that he is included in the group, but he still thinks he can do what he did when he was a teenager, paying the price later, with lots of sore muscles. He also denies he is a Type II diabetic, only admitting he has a ‘sugar problem.’  We are trying to limit our exposure as much as seems reasonable, hoping the experts get a handle on the testing soon.

It is certainly getting more spring-like here, with lots and lots of rain this week. We are due to get up to 3 inches by the end of the day Thursday. It’s a really good thing the veggie planting boxes we built have good drainage or the plants would need to learn to swim!

I hope that you are somewhere safe, practicing social distancing, washing your hands, NOT touching your face, and spending your time in a pleasant manner.

 

 

 

 

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A Beautiful Day, Except…

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We are having a truly gorgeous day today – particularly for February. The sun is shining brightly and it’s 59 degrees outside!

Yesterday we not only saw the small herd of 6 deer beside the road on the way to town, but also saw a roadrunner when we got home.

Getty Images

This one above is not the one we saw, but the picture gives you an idea. He was up on our deck railing, eating the handful of seed we try to leave in the “bird” feeder we made from a shovel.

Shovel Bird Feeder

Shovel BirdFeeder and Friends on the Deck Railing

He seemed quite comfortable eating brunch as we watched. Two squirrels and a rabbit rounded out the wonderful display of nature.

Our doggies have LOVED the day, wearing us out with letting them out and back in again over and over. (They have to go out separately, since our lab, Amber, is jealous of our elderly cocker spaniel/schnauzer cross, Molly, and tries to hurt her.)  We are getting our exercise today playing “doggy doorman.”

Amber

 

Molly

I got the ingredients for keto chili in the crock pot early this morning – at my husband’s request – so we’ll enjoy having that ready to eat for dinner tonight. I also cut up a HUGE container of strawberries because my husband lives for his ‘cakes, ice cream, and strawberries’ each night.

This would be a perfect day except that it’s February, meaning I need to get our paperwork organized for our CPA to do our taxes. I have kept spreadsheets on the various deduction categories this year, and I have made myself enter the data each month, so I think it will be mostly a matter of checking things over, totaling everything, and printing the spreadsheets, then adding the appropriate backup for each thing.

Stock records to confirm as we wait for the company to send us the official records, filing, updating, and THEN opening the spreadsheets for the records for 2020 are also on the list.

If all this paperwork were done with a swish of my magic wand, I would be the happiest of women….

 

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Family, Lewis Art, Lewis yard art, Mother Nature, Thoughts on a ________

Mr. Bountiful

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My husband and I work in harmony each morning to get all the animals fed, breakfast fixed and eaten, dishwasher unloaded, and our basic chores done.

He usually takes the animals out first thing, stopping at our big bucket of sunflower seeds in the garage to take out to the deck for the birds. We put out both sunflower seeds and the small seeds you see in the picture above.

After he comes in and we are sitting at the dining area table for breakfast, it’s like the memo went out – “Mr. Bountiful has come!”

All of a sudden we’re awash in lots and lots of birds of all stripes bouncing from feeder to feeder, plus a squirrel or two, entertaining us as we eat.

We put a special squirrel feeder up, right on the other side of the window. It has a gallon glass bottle held up by a wooden closure. The squirrel has to come into the wooden enclosure and then stretch out to get the seed in the bottle. We get a really great look at him. There are little pointy-headed birds that also use this feeder, popping in and out with regularity.

With the birds and squirrels outside the window, our two dogs and two cats sitting on the floor around the table, and the fish happily eating in their aquarium, we feel happy and rich.

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Arkansas, Delightful Surprises, Family, Favorite Things, Greenwood, Mother Nature