Stay Warm

I am not a big fan of the squirrels, but this time of year it is hard not to feel sorry for them.

Today is Outdoor Wednesday. Please check out the others here. Thanks to Susan at a Southern Daydreamer.

I love this tree!

This flowering crabapple tree was in our back yard when we moved here 17 years ago.  It is hard to believe we have lived here 17 years.  Time goes way too fast. 

I just love this tree. In the spring it is covered in beautiful blossoms and gets these wonderful berries that stay on the branches all winter.  The birds and squirrels just love them.

Well this fall we had a major sewer project in our small town. Everyone was required to be hooked up to “city” sewer. This meant no more mound systems or septic tanks.

With is project came loss of gardens. It also meant loss of our grass that we had looking pretty nice. My back yard is such a mess it makes me sick to look at it. Hope to make it into something better next spring.

This brings me back to this tree that I love.  They wanted to cut it down.  I just couldn’t let them do it.  It would take too long to get another tree this size.  I got my way.  They left the tree.  It took a beating, but I think it will live.  A couple branches are splitting where it was hit by the machines.  I will have to remove them, but I think it will be okay.  Yeah!

These photos were taken on Sunday.  I just couldn’t believe all the Robins in our yard.  I counted 18 of them in the tree and on the ground in the back yard.  Some of the berries fell to the ground when the contractors where working around the tree.

Today is Outdoor Wednesday. Please check out the others here.   Thanks to Susan at a Southern Daydreamer.

Mr. Naughty Part 2

Mr. Naughty has been up to some new tricks. He is now able to steal the whole suet and run with it. He lifts the lid and pulls the suet out. I don't have a photo of that, because I was too busy getting the suet back from him.

Mr. Naughty

You just have to love him. My neighbor feeds the squirrels, so he has plenty to eat there. Yesterday was the first day he found our bird feeders. Before that, he just watched from the tree. He was so funny trying to get in there. We put the "birds only" sign up on the feeder, so hopefully he will stay at the neighbors.

We are continuing to have bad weather here. Most of the schools are closed in our area and the snow is several feet deep. I will post more photos of the snow this week.

Today is Mosaic Monday. Please check out the others here. Thanks to Mary at Little Red house.

Gray Squirrel

This little guy was hiding in my back yard yesterday. I have a love/hate relationship with them. I love to watch hang in the trees and jump from branch to branch. But, I was not very happy with them last fall when they dug up my flower bulbs.



Fun fact about gray squirrels. They can hide 25 nuts in a half an hour and later find roughly 80 percent of those it buried. Hunters will sometimes trick a gray squirrel into showing itself by clicking two quarters together, which makes a squirrel-like sound. Please check other fact on gray squirrels from the Minnesota DNR here.

Today is also Outdoor Wednesday. Thanks to our host Susan at a Southern Daydreamer. Please check out the others here.