Ask and ye shall receive...

Awwwww! I have gotten eight comments since last night, and none of them were profane. You people are just the best. I am just going to ignore the fact that three of them came from one friend in Mexico who was pretending to be three different people in order to pump up my (not) fragile ego. :)

KP, you are not intruding at all, nor is anyone else who reads this (unless they are a serial killer or some other sort of psychopath). It's nice to think that someone is reading your daily dose of drivel. And the British touch to my rants is no doubt due to having been brought up by a pair of ranting Brits!

And L is right too... I don't think I could keep up with a readership like Aunt Purl's or Yarn Harlot's. HOWEVER, I will take 10%. How's that?

I hope you are all enjoying the animal photos, because they will no doubt be changing somewhat in six weeks when we move to the 86-acre "hobby" farm we bought. While there are plenty of wild birds and animals around the farm, I know it's not going to be quite like this little nature paradise we currently live in. But on the plus side, you will eventually get some cute chicken, lamb, duck, geese, llama, donkey and who-knows-what-else pictures. Not to mention the fact that I am getting a DOG this fall!!! I have been dogless for a year and it's killing me.

To reward (?) you all for your kindness and faithful reading, I bring to you:

"Red Squirrel on CRAP hose that cost a lot of money and was purported to be no kink, even though it kinks more than any hose I have owned"

Nice lawn, eh? Oh well, we don't own it!

I admit, I like these squirrels, even though we have owned two houses where we have had to have them humanely trapped and removed from our attic, which was not a particularly cheap process. They install one-way exits in your roof afterwards. Red squirrels are smarter than grey squirrels, and more persistent. (But I'm not convinced they are smarter than chipmunks. Chipmunks can take THREE peanuts in the shell from me and run off the hide them, whereas the red squirrels, lacking those super-expandable cheeks, can only take one and thus must make a couple more trips for every one a chipmunk makes.)

Living in Nova Scotia, I once literally ran into a red squirrel as it was coming up our basement steps. Somehow it had made its way down from the attic to the basement, through the walls! A wild chase around our living room ensued, but I managed to get the squirrel outside without damage to either rodent or household objects. The cats were enthralled by it all.

I blame my father for this squirrel thing I have. Although he was quite a manly man, my Dad had this huge soft spot he kept hidden as much as possible. He used to get ticked if I cried, but it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I realized that this was because my crying was capable of making HIM cry, and he couldn't have that! Anyway, he loved taking me to feed the squirrels and chipmunks and ducks (and even the seagulls and pigeons) at the parks in Toronto. I sometimes think he just used me as an excuse, he enjoyed feeding the animals so much. Certainly it's something we did together until the end of his life, and in fact, five days after he died, on what would have been Dad's 62nd birthday, I went to the park and fed chipmunks and squirrels in his honour.

Okay, I have been verbose enough for one 24-hour period. I gotta go get a haircut now.