Sunday, September 9, 2012

When Attitude Becomes Altitude

I've mentioned before our daughter, Michelle, and the relationship she has with the neighborhood squirrels. It seems at times she has them eating right out of her hand. She's been feeding them, or generations of them I suspect for many years and now she uses kitchen utensils.


Sorry, that was too easy, I know. But it's a home game and I'll take all the cheap calls I can get. Especially since looks can be deceiving. That's chunky peanut butter if you hadn't already guessed it-store brand, by the way. We normally don't eat chunky in my house as it really screws up the white bread when you try to spread it.

My Imp of the Perverse is such that all the time Michelle was feeding her/him from the spoon I wondered what we'd do if the stuff stuck to the roof of her/his mouth. Offer her/him some milk? Do we call animal control on a weekend? 'Yes, 911, it is an emergency now that you bring it up...'

These animals have it made. We  go through probably six to nine pounds of peanuts a week at my house and most of them are for the squirrels. The Blue Jays and Cardinals enjoy them as well (as do the grackels and the sparrows) but they get rather rudely elbowed out of the way a lot and there's not much they can do about it.

Unless as happened yesterday, again, the squirrels screw themselves up. Michelle grew "short" sunflowers this year in her garden to attract beneficial insects to pollinate the various vegetables. I put air quotes around short as the average height was supposed to be five feet and these plants are closer to nine to ten feet.

The additional height doesn't preclude them from producing a delightful flower that is also, apparently, delicious as the squirrels can't keep their paws off them, no matter how many peanuts they've already eaten.


I caught this character enjoying himself and his handiwork (I'm sick of that her and his stuff) rather late in the afternoon while Michelle and her mother were out at the Portuguese Mall (not really). Looks like it was quite tasty-and may create a situation only a genius on the order of  George Washington Carver can resolve. Talvez a memória de amendoim provarão ser amargo como o sabor de girassóis roubados.
-bill kenny    

No comments:

A Childhood Memory

As a child at Saint Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, it was forcibly impressed upon us by the Sisters of Charity whose...