I’m grateful that the world keeps presenting me with interesting things. After this last snow there are lots of bits of the spruce tree outside my living room lying on the snow. I’ve seen red squirrels around recently, so I blamed them and lo and behold, when I looked it up, in times of scarcity, red squirrels bite off twigs that have buds on them, then they bite out the center of the buds and discard the twig.
I’m grateful that the bank’s appraisal came in at $10,000 more than I’m paying for it. My realtor called it “instant equity.”
I’m grateful that I now have a lovely smaller covered dumpster, almost gleeful!
I’m grateful for the show in the back yard this afternoon. I tossed out a few handfuls of peanuts when I filled the bird feeder, and tossed some sunflower seeds under the spruce tree. Sure enough, many of the little twigs have buds nipped out, although some didn’t seem to have buds.
I haven’t had red squirrels around much, which is nice, they are like quarrelsome neighbors. There are two sitting out under the spruce, eating sunflower seeds and yelling at each other to beat the band. For a while they were sitting about a foot apart and while one chewed and swallowed the other went chattering on non-stop. Meanwhile the peanuts I threw out next to the garden have been greatly reduced in numbers by one diligent squirrel who has been gamely running to them, picking up one and dashing off in different directions to bury them in the snow about an inch down. If a plant grew in each location they would be scattered all across the yard, I can’t imagine that the squirrel will remember where they all are, or that others won’t loot them. After a while it started hunting around for nuts buried in the snow near where they were lying and took several to distant places. Then, a good job done and about 6 nuts left, it was time to stop and savor some left over peanuts for lunch.
I’m waiting for Nancy to call about the negotiations. I got up early, so it feels like I’ve been waiting a long time, still, it’s only 11AM there.
I’m pleased that I got the shoveling done, it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped, because everything that had been plowed had more saturation and needed to be broken up before it could get dug out. I’d been reluctant to go out because there was a lot of gusty wind around, but fortunately the temp being around freezing, it was warm enough for me to be able to take off my coat, once I got going. Now everything is open.
There’s a big porcupine haunting my winter world although waddling as it does, makes it harder to really haunt. It’s surprising how high they will climb to grab a meal, I don’t mind it so much in the woods, but I hope it won’t start eating some of the trees near the house. This one was just passing by, going down hill. There is a crust on the snow, so getting around right now is as easy as it gets for a porcupine.
