Friday Fun With Coffee! #5

Good morning to everyone and Happy Friday to you as well! It is another bitterly cold day, mostly cloudy at the moment though the sun has peeked out a bit now and then. The chickadees are here, as are a couple of nuthatches and around 20 common redpolls. I have not seen redpolls around for a while, maybe this is the start of more birds coming to the feeders. There has been no sign of evening or pine grosbeaks though. Also no blue jays yet this morning.

I am not quite sure, but it almost seemed like Jasper, my squirrel, was back this morning. But it was probably a different squirrel. I keep hoping Jasper will come back though. Of all the squirrels I have had here, he is definitely my favorite. Hopefully he still “is” and has not been moved to the “was” category. Though I really do not think he is around anymore. And LB was my least favorite squirrel. LB is short for Little Brat, which he was, very much.

Above is Squirk, my first squirrel.

He managed to chase away 14 other squirrels that I had here, though six of those were young squirrels. So was LB. His mother and another female were the top squirrels at the time. Those two females were evenly matched, so they finally decided to stop fighting and they tolerated each other after that. But they kept their distance from each other too. LB first chased away his mother and all the other squirrels. There was just Mama squirrel left. He went to her and jumped on her. She beat him badly and he ran away squealing.

Next day he did the same thing. She beat him again and he ran away. Later in the day he tried again and lost for the third time. But he would not give up and eventually chased her away too. His brother, Whitey, because of his white tail, stayed around all summer and would sneak in when LB wasn’t around. But he disappeared in the fall. I liked Whitey too.

This is LB, the Little Brat.

LB was not too smart though, when mating season came there were no female squirrels around for him since he chased them all away. That reminds me of a time I was out for a drive and stopped in at my favorite country restaurant. The one that was empty, that I talked about the other day. There was one car already parked out front. I parked and went inside. I was not quite expecting what happened however.

One young guy had gone to the bathroom, the other one was just standing around trying to get the attention of the waitress who was all alone that day. And she was a very pretty young woman. When I came in she came running over and gave me a hug and a kiss. That never happened before. “Steve honey, you are late today,” she said to me. “It was a busy day Krissy” I said, not knowing what was going on.

And above is Reddy, the mother of LB. I guess being crazy runs in the family.

The other guy came out of the bathroom and the one standing around said to him, “her boyfriend arrived.” The other guy looked over at me, then they both left. They were both about my size. When they went out the door Krissy ran over and locked the door and put up the closed sign, then she closed all the curtains on the windows so they could not look in.

Apparently those 2 guys were getting a little too friendly with Krissy so she had told them her boyfriend would be here soon and said they should leave. I pulled up just shortly after she told them that. She was so relieved, and since I was her “boyfriend”, that is why the greeting. Just to put it straight, however, I was not her boyfriend, she did not have one either. But it worked out good anyway. She was totally by herself as her parents were off in town shopping.

This is Mama, above, my second most favorite squirrel.

She asked me if I would stay until they got back, which was fine with me, I was in no hurry. She made us a nice meal too. Her parents thanked me for helping. Krissy is not her real name though, I thought it best to change it. That warming trend is beginning tonight, I am looking forward to some milder temps. This cold is just too much. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2023 Steve McLeod.