Good morning once again everyone! I hope you are all having a nice day! For Muffin and I the day started bright and early. Well, it wasn’t too bright, it was dark actually, mainly because it was so early. I was tired yesterday so I got to bed nice and early, which proved to be not very helpful. It was only 40 minutes earlier than normal so I thought that would be okay, but half an hour later than my usual bedtime I was still awake, trying to get comfortable. It was slippery yesterday due to melting the day before. Sunday the temperature hit a nice 40F (4.3C), but no real melting since the sun is too low in the sky now.

But the snow softened a bit on the deck, then froze Sunday night and was solid ice the next morning. I went out very carefully to put food out for the birds and…slipped! That pulled muscles in my back and gave me a sore neck. Which is why I had trouble with sleeping last night. Then I was up between 1 and 2:30, then got up at 4:30, after trying unsuccessfully to sleep. Oh well. These things happen. Which is why our day started early. Muffin was happy and we had fun playing for over an hour. She is now on top of me sleeping. I kind of wish I was doing the same.

It actually warmed up overnight with a strong south wind blowing. The birds are busy. The squirrels are busy too, having their “discussions” and chases and more “discussions”. Poor Jasper. He’s going to lose weight trying to defend his territory, or maybe I should say, take back his territory since Slim took it from him last summer. Now Slim doesn’t come around much since he moved across the street. But there is squirrel 2, that I have now named Garnet (a mineral found in this area, sometimes considered a semi-precious gemstone). Jasper’s name is also a mineral.

So I might keep that trend in names for any new squirrels. It is going to be mild again today and tomorrow, might even get some showers, which is bad, makes more ice as we move back to colder weather on Thursday. Anyway, Garnet is becoming trouble for Jasper, constantly trying to get over here for peanuts, and he makes it sometimes. Until Jasper spots him. Then the chase is on. So far Garnet has not tried to fight Jasper, he just runs and chatters a lot. Yesterday I was watching Jasper digging through the snow, down he went until he disappeared and dirt started to fly. Up he came with one of the walnuts he buried in the fall. He remembered where it was, even buried beneath 10 inches of snow.

And it was not beside any visible marker, it was out in the yard, and he found it first try. Not too bad. Blue jays have been studied and it was discovered they can find food they hid more than a year earlier. Gray jays, crows, chickadees, nuthatches and many others are the same. On the way to my friend’s yesterday I spotted some deer in a yard. In the group was a large buck laying down and a smaller buck that looked like he was trying to challenge the big buck. The large buck was ignoring him, which is a good thing for the small buck. But I did get a couple nice pics of them anyway. Guess it is time to toss out more peanuts for the blue jays. Have a wonderful day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin. (the moon pic at the top was from late yesterday afternoon)

©2021 Steve McLeod.