My Back Yard

Check out my customized squirrel video feed!

A hawk looks majestic sitting on a branch of my maple tree.

But I can’t let it terrorize my squirrels and birds. So I throw corn cobs to scare it away.

My aim isn’t very good. I inadvertently discovered that I’m more likely to shoo the hawk by throwing the corn cob against the garage wall, which makes a loud noise, than by aiming at the hawk.

I got rid of the scary bird this way yesterday.

Tonight I stood on the lawn as I heard a whoosh and a hawk swooped by lower than I’d ever seen one before. It held something in its claws. Too hard to tell whether it was a bird or a squirrel or something else. White feathers fell on the patio as the hawk gained altitude. Its victim must have come from the part of our yard behind me, where the Squirrel Palace feeding station lies.

The squirrels and mourning doves feeding on the patio in front of me scattered in a heartbeat as the hawk revealed itself.

Iggy and I are sad. We lost a friend.

How did I miss a story like “Iran’s spying squirrels” for so long?

Here’s the YouTube version of the story.

Yesterday I spotted a squirrel-sized rabbit feeding on the bird food scattered on my patio.

So cute!

This comic gymnastics routine is cute.

Some of my hostas STILL haven’t bloomed. But at least most of the veterans are showing buds now.

The newbie hostas aren’t even budding. I’m guessing that won’t happen until their third year in the ground.

Three beans. That’s my entire first crop of green beans.

I planted quite a few bean seeds, in rounds at least a week apart. Only one of the first seeds made it to maturity, hence my three-bean harvest.

I ate one right away. I can’t say it tasted different than a store-bought bean. But I felt thrilled to have grown it myself.

I chopped the other two beans into a salad and then forgot about them.

Five other plants have sprouted. So it doesn’t look as if I’ll get enough for one full serving of beans. But, I’m still enjoying them.

I’ve discovered a new squirrel blog, The Red Squirrel, featuring photos of squirrels that visit a feeder in Bavaria, Germany. Check it out!

Squirrelly cuteness definitely crosses national boundaries.

Squirrelogs should be for squirrels, right?

Iggy and I run a Squirrel Cafe, which is meant to feature a corn cob jammed onto a nail for squirrels’ eating pleasure. But dried corn cobs have been in short supply since the ethanol boom started. Iggy hasn’t found them at Agway in months. So, on his last visit to the store, Iggy bought a package of Squirrelogs made of sweet corn flour molded into a corn cob shape. My fluffy-tailed friends don’t like the Squirrelogs as much as the real thing. But they seem to enjoy gnawing on the logs occasionally.

The squirrels had the Squirrelogs all to themselves. Until yesterday, when I noticed some sparrows pecking at the rain-moistened corn product. They came back again today. Next, I noticed a blue jay working on the Squirrelog.

Birds had ignored the traditional corn cobs in the cafe, but now they’ve taken with gusto to the ersatz replacement. The poor squirrels are sharing yet another food source with the birds. In my backyard, there’s no food that’s exclusive to squirrels. The birds get in on all the action. Plus, they have three feeders that hang off a wall of our house where the squirrels can’t reach.