Yeah squirrel, I feel your pain… and irritation.
This has not been a red letter week at work or at home. Threats of violence at the former, a sudden outbreak of fleas at the latter, and all while still being forced around by the sterilized gloved hands of those who continue to be obsessed by a single virus. Yeah, it’s been fun. Let’s make it even funner by answering Melanie’s Share Your World questions for this week!
Just crush it! Nobody will care…
Is it ever okay to commit a crime? Please explain.
From a legal perspective, crimes are any activities that violate a law that is enforced by whatever governing bodies have jurisdiction in your area. Murder is a crime. So is speeding. The state of my property violates more local ordinances than I care to look up, making me a serial criminal in the eyes of City Hall. Everyone commits crimes, so hopefully that is OK with those people who believe their crimes don’t stink…
If fashion was a crime, everyone would have went to prison in the 70’s.
Do you deal with change well? (not money, because I know some wit out there is thinking how bulky coins are. Well I did any how. 
)
Ch-ch-ch-change!
I deal with this kind of change perfectly fine. I have plenty of containers to store it in. The other kind of change, not so much. Sorry David Bowie. Creature of habit, and all that shit. Combined with my absolute apathy towards our new friend from China, it’s made me just a tad bit edgy these past few months…
Time for a little Shelf therapy…
Do you like birds? The sound of bird song in the morning, taking pictures of them, as food?
Hmmmmm, what’s my favorite food again?
Shhhh, I think I hear a birdsong coming from the bucket!
Apparently, many bird lovers are very anti-squirrel because they don’t want the furry bottomless pits scavenging out of their precious birdfeeders. So being on Team Squirrel pretty much makes me dislike birds on general principle. Before I moved into this house with a garage, I did have to park my car under a tree… and you can imagine what all of the winged Jackson Pollack wannabes constantly did to my car. So I really didn’t like birds to begin with…. though I will take pictures of any interesting ones I see while I’m photographing squirrels….
You got a problem, buddy?
Hey Guido. Let’s moydalize this bum!
The blackbird of evil is always watching you!
Mind if I pee in your pool?
What’s the least used item of clothing you own?
My wardrobe is already pretty bare minimum as it is. What’s hanging in my closet all gets cycled through and worn eventually. Though I don’t keep it with my regular clothes, I guess the winner here would be my slightly more formal attire consisting of one pair of black dress pants and a white dress shirt which only gets worn when absolutely necessary. The last time I had it on was at my Dad’s funeral three years ago. I’m casual all the way…
My kind of formal wear…
If you care to share, what are you grateful for?
My electric/gas bill from the previous billing cycle (Which runs from mid April to mid May) was the lowest one I’ve ever gotten at just $56 and change. Apparently, we reached that perfect Spring equilibrium where it wasn’t hot enough to run the AC, nor cold enough to turn on the furnace for most of that period. Now that summer weather has finally showed up, that will change by my next bill, but it was one pleasant surprise in a not so pleasant week…
If only I could use the boundless power of Mitzi to run everything around here…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
yay for a low bill, Bill!!!! it’s hard to imagine that millions of girls wrote love letters to the guys of The Sweet… maybe that means that our species always had a screw loose? btw: love the photo of the pool pee-r he really looks like that, perfect caption
I’ll bet that bird did more than pee in the pool. Though it is a birdbath, so he’s really ruining the fun for his fellow burds…
Hope the violence at Mecca never happened – and WOW on that electric/gas bill – we kind of lucked out during that period too but are “catching up to reality” now. I think that bird that’s squatting in your birdbath MIGHT be a grey hawk??? Not sure though – I love watching birds but don’t know many of them by name (haha). Oh and as a former plumbing nightmare recipient (!) you might appreciate that we are hoping for no nightmares when the plumbers come to our place today to replace all three toilets. Hopefully they won’t leave us with three bottomless pits like you had in the kitchen until they can come back to finish the job!
Pam
When I posted the photo of that big gray bird six years ago, there were a lot of guesses as to what it was… but nothing that was conclusive. I am kinda curious myself, but some kind of hawk seemed to be the consensus. My plumbers would have a field day if they got to dig three trenches on one job. Scrooge McDuck couldn’t even pay that bill. I hope your plumbing experience turns out much better than mine did…
Trust me……I hope our experience is better than yours was too…….!!
Team squirrel here, too – and I can prove it, I have watched countless hours of squirrel obstacle course videos. One good channel is the one from Steve Barley, and Mark Rober has been turned from being Team bird to finally find his heart for squirrels.
Squirrels seem to have an unfair advantage when it comes to obstacle courses, since they treat life as a giant one. Always happy to have another confirmed member on Team Squirrel though…. not that we want to hate on birds, but they need to be taken down a peg or three.
Sorry to hear it’s been a bad week at work and at home. I saw several stories about Meccas being looted and vandalized and hoped you weren’t seeing any of that in your area. And sorry about the fleas. That’s so miserable!
Seeing the birds in your photos, I can see why you’re not especially fond of birds. They’re all kinda creepy! They all look like they’re up to something. I have some new feathered neighbors I’m not thrilled about. A family of Merlins has moved into the big cedar by my deck. They spent the first month or so screeching. All morning, all afternoon, all evening. It was nonstop. Now that has calmed down a bit but they sit in the top of the tree and eat birds, sending a constant flurry of feathers down into my backyard. I love the little chickadees and juncos that hang around and finding their remains in my garden does not make me happy!
I hope your week gets better.
We’re a hop, skip and a river away from the infamous Ferguson, so anytime something breaks out anywhere in the country… we get to enjoy all of the chaos that comes with it. So far all’s been quiet, but we’ve been thwarting planned protests by closing at 5, and that won’t help this weekend. We’ll see…
As for the fleas, I finally broke down and called the vet’s office… and they don’t have any of those instakill pills they’ve given me in the past. And those tubes just don’t work for me (Biskit’s shoulder blades can’t be pried apart with a vise), so I got referred to an online site to order some very expensive stuff that might be delivered sometime in the next 5-8 business days. Lovely…
I’d like to say at this point things can’t get much worse, but tempting fate seems like a bad idea!
I’ve never heard of merlins before… and wasn’t even aware there were birds that ate other birds! I thought at first you were talking about martins that eat mosquitoes… and I only know about them because Mecca was in the purple martin house business during the West Nile scare back in the day…
I hope your expensive flea treatment comes faster than some of the stuff I’ve ordered lately. I think there must be a mail hub somewhere in the middle of the country where they are currently processing packages at a rate of one per day. And every day is one too many when dealing with a flea outbreak! It’s been awhile since we’ve had one (now I’ve tempted fate) so I don’t remember what we used to get rid of them. If I remember right, it took a few different things.
I didn’t know these pesky birds were merlins until Don’s friend that is like a walking field guide came over. We call them the flappy screechies. They look a bit like the hawk in your photo with the bird bath, only darker brown.
Thanks E.S. for Sharing Your World. Poor Buster. Now HE’S the poster possum for the most persecuted creature on the entire planet. Apologies to George.
Um. Your ‘bird’ looked delicious, but up here anyway, the Colonel apparently needs a new car, so the prices could potentially fund a small 3rd World Country. I’ve stopped eating at the Colonel’s. I’m sorry that Mecca has been threatened and violence implied (or actively pursued). I do NOT understand the whole mob mentality and never did and never will. I mean geez. Why kill the serfs in the service of the “King”? It’s madness. Awfully cute pics you shared too. That blackbird scared ME and it was a photo! Mr/Ms Robin was darling..but robins are my favorite birds. So cheeky. The squirrels, as usually were magnificent! I saw you had visited Marilyn’s blog and had seen the many cute squirrel pics over there too. She’s one that embraces both the bird and the squirrel with equal passion. It’s great. Thanks again! 😀
That blackbird really is creepy looking, and you can tell by the squirrel’s face that he’s unnerved by it as well! That was one of those photos I ignored for almost a year after I took it before actually realizing what I had captured there later on!
Here in faraway Finland we know what is happening there in Ameerika, I hope you will be safe. We love squirrels and birds, so we have in feeders food enough for all, no problem.
The critters here don’t like to share, much like the people. We are a bad influence on them…
Your bird images are terrific even if they crash the squirrel camp. Had to chuckle with the photo bomb of the bird behind the squirrel. It always surprises me that if you’re gonna feed birds, you have to pretty much figure squirrels will get there first. That’s the law of nature and it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, right?
I have observed since squirrels became my “thing” that those who actively try to deter squirrels and treat them as pests seem to have the most problems with them. Nature will get its revenge when she knows she’s not wanted…
That’s a great squirrel shot with the bird lurking in the background!
I started off pretty apathetic about the virus too, thinking it another “bird/swine flu” scare, but then tens of thousands of people started dying and I realised that going to the supermarket could actually kill me…
Congratulations on hitting the heating/AC sweet spot!
Bah, more people are dying in auto accidents. I still want to drive.
I’ll admit, I have a somewhat unreasonably apathetic attitude towards the virus mainly because disease and germs and whatnot has never been something that bothered me. I think the thing that really nags at me is this view that those who have been isolated on the “inside” have about what it’s been like on the “outside” for the past three months. It’s not wall to wall plague and death. It isn’t even scary. If it was, I and many of the rest of my fellow essentials would have mostly been cooked by now…
When asked about birds I default to your way of thinking about them. Cute to photograph, but *perhaps* better to eat?