Ishmael, Call Me Bullwinkle

As the autumn days grow shorter, the critters in our backyard get a little more frantic. We have cardinals, which is certainly more than the World Series can say, as well as Blue Jays, see previous attempt at humor, along with other birds like woodpeckers, titmouses (quite a lot of discussion eh?), sparrows and our favorites, the grey squirrels.

I went out about a month ago and bought a fifty pound bag of what turned out to be shelled peanuts, in pieces, which meant my wife had to rescue me (again) by unearthing two ancient squirrel feeder boxes that we could use for the "I love Pieces that aren't Reese's" contingent except.....

...as it happens, most of the squirrels, and I think we're up to seven or more now (I don't like being accused of profiling but they do all look pretty the same so I'm not sure if I'm counting some more than once or if there are even more than I thought), like the shelled legume more than the already to eat version. Go figure.

There are times you can almost forget they are a wild animal, usually at the exact moment you're having second thoughts about having them take a peanut out of your hand. I've never had mad math skills, so help me out. It's five phalanges per hand, right? No doubt about it, I gotta get me a new hat.

-bill kenny