Squirrels, squirrels, squirrels

Congrats to Andrea Dale, who has been chosen to be the Interfilk guest at Conchord 2007!

I've been highly entertained by the lively LJ discussion about my squirrel Blatherings. Some offer useful suggestions like using chicken wire to cover my bulb plantings, Nella Darren/Christine helpfully suggests Chia-izing a squirrel's head, others have rallied to the defense of the squirrels (from Taunya: "POWER TO THE SQUIRRELS! DOWN WITH THE LITTLE CHIRPY EFFEMINATE BIRD THINGYS! Fur over feathers!!!!").

From my friend Bruce M. (one of my friends from university days), in a mailing list discussion:

"I had always believed that Debbie was a helpless dupe of the hideous creatures. It sounds like she had quite a narrow escape in Queen's park - a few seconds more with one clinging to her leg and it probably would have injected its venom, paralyzing her so that she could be dragged down into the hive where the bloated squirrel queen would lay its eggs in her still-living body."

From my helpful friend John C.:

"The other day, as I was getting ready for Hallowe'en, I came across a bag of stale Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from some Hallowe'en long past. I put it in our generally raccoon-proof blue Rubbermaid wheeled garbage can and forgot about it. The next day, I found that a team of squirrels had managed to gnaw several squirrel-sized holes through the lid and the PBCs were all gone. Sadly, theobromine is poisonous to dogs but not squirrels. I checked: if you Google for theobromine and squirrel, you get a bunch of pages listing the nutritional value of squirrel meat, and listing their theobromine content as zero. So the moral of the story is to leave your peanut butter waste on top of your garbage can, and your bulbs on top of your flower beds. That will keep your squirrels happy."

Incidentally, there has been something digging or chewing on the walls of my basement office recently. When I bang on the walls, it falls silent for several long minutes, but then starts up again. I've checked outside but can see nothing.

It sounds bigger than a mouse.

Could it be that the SLF has sent one of its minions after me?!?

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Demon squirrels

Looks like the mothballs and mulch didn't work...the squirrels got to my crocus bulbs. In theory, they left the daffodils alone since squirrels aren't supposed to like eating daffodils. I hope this theory's right, or that little plot of ground is going to look awfully empty come spring.

I've always had a love-hate thing going with squirrels. They're darned cute but sometimes they drive me around the bend. In my Animal Behaviour class at the University of Toronto, I did a study on their eating habits, foolishly taking a bag of peanuts and a notebook into Queen's Park in Toronto. Note: a bag of peanuts. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?



No one had told me about the squirrels in Queen's Park. Back in my day, the Queen's Park Squirrels were drooling, voracious creatures the size of cats, likely to chew your head off if you weren't paying proper attention. Ok, so maybe this is a SLIGHT exaggeration. The part about the size, that is.

To make a long story short, I ended up fleeing Queen's Park with a squirrel steadily clambering its way up my leg with the determination of a psychotic mountain climber bent on making the summit before the big storm hits; thankfully I smartened up and flung the peanuts behind me as a distraction while I made my escape. Some of my friends from university still mock me about this traumatic experience, the unfeeling cads.

While living in our condo, squirrels were a non-issue. But now we're back in the same territory, pretty much face-to-face every day. I've already ticked off some of the local squirrels, I'm sure, when I bought my Squirrelbuster feeder. None have yet figured out how to get to the seeds; instead they each periodically make their pilgrimages halfway up the tree trunk where they cling for several long minutes staring balefully at the Squirrelbuster, their tails twitching in fury, while I cruelly guffaw from behind the window.

So THAT's how I know that the crocus bulb vandalism was an act of revenge!

Speaking of Evil Squirrels, I never did post the wonderful Eichhörnchen that Christine ("Nella Darren", whose Demons CD was recently released) drew for Urban Tapestry after Filkcontinental. The word means "squirrel" in German, though Christine initially tried convincing us it was a swear word. :-D Anyway, here's her drawing:



As for my poor, desecrated crocus bulbs: you just wait until NEXT year, you demon vermin!

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Saskatoon berry pie

Dandelion at Niagara-on-the-Lake

Some of your postings yesterday have definitely inspired me to try baking a Saskatoon berry pie or tartlets (Kristen suggested with whipped cream, yum), if I can harvest the berries before the birds. Might be tricky this year, though, since the berries are likely going to fully ripen before Jeff and I move in (Graham says I should wait until the berries turn blue or purple), which means the birds will probably be feasting before then.

Don't know if I'd attempt the pastry crust from scratch, though. The last time I tried making pie pastry was a disaster. I served the pie to Jeff's sister shortly after we had met for the first time, wasn't my sister-in-law yet.

ME (nervous): "I think the crust might be a bit tough."

LARKIN: "Oh no, I'm sure it's fine, Debbie."

(Larkin struggles to cut her piece with a fork. Struggles very hard. The fork BENDS, unable to pierce the teflon-like material that is my pie crust.)

LARKIN: "Um, well, maybe it's a LITTLE tough..."

Sara fishing off the cottage dock last year.

This weekend, Jeff and Ray and I are going to paint my office. Then next week, my office gets a carpet! VERY hyped about this. Our storage locker isn't being unloaded into the house until the middle of next month when renovations are complete so I still won't be able to really use my office yet, but at least I can sit on the floor with my laptop and think happythoughts. :-)

Sent out a query about an article about the Northern Lights yesterday, got a go-ahead from the editor by the end of the day. I also think I may have sold my first gardening cartoon!

Got my Stokes, Richters and Veseys catalogs recently, woohoo! I've already started drooling over the Jiffy pots and grow lights and jaw-dropping number of interesting herbs and vegetables and flowers that could be growing in my garden next year. If I had a garden the size of the Northwest Territories, that is.

This year, I'm exerting enormous restraint and only planting a few herbs while I acquaint myself with our new garden. You can see pictures of all the plants I've managed to identify with the help of some of you, the previous owner, and the wonderful community at YouGrowGirl.com in this Flickr photo set.

Doing gardenstuff today, in fact. Ruth's sharing some of her groundcover plants and we're also visiting a nearby garden nursery so I can browse and get some fertilizer.

Had a nice evening yesterday. Jeff came home at an unprecedented hour (6 pm!) and we strolled along the lakefront, had dinner at a restaurant with outdoor patio, then visited GameTrek at the Royal York.

Sunrise at the cottage

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tiny Ray

Happy Father's Day to you dads out there!

My friend Ray called me while he was waiting for a train this afternoon. I took a picture of him out of my mom-in-law's condo window. You can see a zoomed-in photo here.

Karin & Scott's wedding photo.

Hung out at the new house for a bit with Jeff and Ray yesterday morning to talk with Sean about renovation stuff. Renovation work is going well and on time, yay! Much of the first floor has been repainted, the new tub has been installed.

The movers are scheduled to bring our stuff out of storage in about a month. A month seems like forever to me right now; I am SO excited about being able to finally move in and get settled. To not have to commute for an hour to get to our place just to look at the garden. To have the house to ourselves. To be able to move into MY NEW OFFICE.

But I digress. During our visit yesterday, I had the check out the garden, of course, and was delighted to find the mock orange tree blooming outside our kitchen window:



And hey, I hadn't realized that hostas had flowers:

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I am immensely grateful to those of you who have been e-mailing or posting as well as the community at YouGrowGirl.com for helping me identify the various plants in our new garden! I still feel pretty clueless, but not QUITE as clueless as before.

There were lots of bumblebees flitting about our hardy geraniums. Check out this very cool close-up of a bumblebee in our garden that Ray took. He and I sat and watched the bumblebees for a bit; it was fascinating to watch them up close, sticking their tongues into the centre of each flower, soaking up nectar. I was curious enough to look up the anatomy of a bumbleebee when I got home.

I also wished I had paid more attention in grade school when we learned about flower pollination. I found myself wondering what happened to flowers that aren't pollinated, that happen to be missed for whatever reason. Does it just mean that the seeds from that flower won't germinate? I feel so ignorant. From this simple explanation, though, it does look as if there's no pollen, the plant won't progress in a way to allow propagation.

Later in the day, Jeff and I went to a post-wedding get-together held by Karin and Scott, who were married in Cuba earlier this year.

Here's Karin's dress, which she made herself for $40 (!):



She also made her own headpiece (see photo at top) out of earrings.

I like this photo of Reid:



Reid used my camera to take this photo of Luisa and me:



Vartan makes drinks behind the bar:



You can see some of the other photos in my Flickr photo set.

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survey: practical and decadent purchases

Our peonies are blooming!

Thanks for the paint suggestions, everyone; I realize now I should have gotten a SMALL paint sample and tried it on the wall first, duh. Because my carpet won't be installed until the end of this month, I might hold off on choosing a paint until next month. Or I might just go with plain white.

Look how happy this woman is with her Hook'n'Go!

My most recent useful purchase was the Hook'n'Go Shopping Bag Caddy. Can't believe I didn't get this years ago, but then again perhaps it wasn't available years ago; I found out about it recently from my friend Cathy. I used to use Grocery Gateway, on online grocery shopping service, but I find that I really enjoy grocery shopping in person.

Yes, I admit it...I actually do ENJOY grocery shopping, browsing the fresh produce area, snooping through the ethnic food ingredients aisle. Since I don't drive, I'm limited in how much I can carry, especially so since the whole tendinitis thing began. I used to have a regular shopping cart but I found it too bulky, and my bags of groceries got squished because I had to pile them on top of each other.

My new Hook'n'Go caddy can carry up to 70 lb of groceries, and folds up. I can pull it behind me (I prefer this) or push it in front like a normal shopping cart. I've used it twice so far and love it. Each time, at least one person has asked me where I got it.

And it's a heckuva lot easier on my tendons and shoulder muscles than lugging stuff around in a backpack and by hand. If you're interested in checking it out, here's the page from Hedonics (picking it up in person will save you the shipping cost). It's also available from Hammacher-Schlemmer (sp?), but it's more expensive.



My most recent decadent purchase is lavender-olive hand soap: Savon de Marseille Extra Pur Olive Lavande. I've been wanting some ever since first trying it years ago, saw it for sale for the first time in a tablecloth shop (!) in Niagara-on-the-Lake a couple of weeks ago.

The fragrance is heavenly and my hands never feel too dry after using it, as is often the case with other soaps. Every time I use it, I feel like I'm being pampered. The sensual and emotional pleasure I get each time makes it so worth the extra money, at least for me. The awareness that I will likely only buy this once a year makes it that much more special.

Ok, now your turn...

Survey:

What was your most recent useful purchase?
What was your most recent decadent purchase? (doesn't have to involve a lot of money, but needs to be something purchased more for pleasure than practicality)

Some garden pics...

Cranesbill (aka Hardy Geranium):



Clematis (not sure what kind):



Another type of clematis :



Pink flowers have appeared at the end of our tamarisk tree branches:



We thought the tree below was dead. Jeff cut it off near the base, was about to pull it out completely, noticed a couple small leaves near ground level, decided to leave it to see what happened. Looks like it's coming back to life...



My new oregano plant:

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