Squirrel influx
The past two Sundays at the nursery have been crazy. The shift before mine is short-handed so they hadn't been able to finish all their feedings which means that they fell to my shift. A fortnight ago we had to do 150 feedings, last week was a mere 120. On both days I had to give medicine to 40 squirrels which wound up taking up 2 hours of my valuable feeding time. I think we hit our peak two weeks ago and from now on the number of squirrels will decrease each week. Soon I'll have my Sunday nights back.
My office squirrel has finally returned. I was off for two weeks in August, and I suppose the squirrel got frustrated when it didn't find a stash of almonds anymore. It took until this week for him to venture back inside. A second squirrel started coming in too. They're both so comfortable that they'll come inside even when others are in my office with me. Yesterday a third squirrel got curious and kept poking her head through the screen but not coming inside. I put a few nuts along the screen so the squirrel would reach inside and grab them. This afternoon the squirrel was finally comfortable enough to enter although she was clearly more skittish than the others. I expect her to mellow out in time.
A couple weeks ago, before took me geocaching so I could finally learn how it's done. We had a great time and found 8 caches all within walking distance of my house. One of them was an arduous climb up a steep litter-strewn hillside. Finding that one was an excellent workout. That evening I went out to eat before heading over to the drive-in to meet up with a few friends. I checked my geocache app and learned that a cache was near the restaurant, so I went over and found it - my first solo find! I put a couple photos from the weekend up here.
I wanted to set up a cache near my house. Turns out that I can't because there already are caches within 0.1 mile of my house. Someone went along 3rd street and put a cache at each bus stop. Oh well. I'll have to find another location for it.
On Labor Day I planned to go kayaking on another river. I had been in the nursery until 1am so I wound up sleeping in late. Just as well. I went back to the nursery to pick up a muskrat to release in a nearby NW suburb. When I returned I found 2 geocaches in the park adjoining the nursery.
Last week was the staged reading of Noir(ish) which I directed. We had our second (and final) rehearsal the Thursday before. The actors were fabulous! They breathed life and depth into their characters. I was thrilled to work with that cast and I hope to do so again.
My office squirrel has finally returned. I was off for two weeks in August, and I suppose the squirrel got frustrated when it didn't find a stash of almonds anymore. It took until this week for him to venture back inside. A second squirrel started coming in too. They're both so comfortable that they'll come inside even when others are in my office with me. Yesterday a third squirrel got curious and kept poking her head through the screen but not coming inside. I put a few nuts along the screen so the squirrel would reach inside and grab them. This afternoon the squirrel was finally comfortable enough to enter although she was clearly more skittish than the others. I expect her to mellow out in time.
A couple weeks ago, before took me geocaching so I could finally learn how it's done. We had a great time and found 8 caches all within walking distance of my house. One of them was an arduous climb up a steep litter-strewn hillside. Finding that one was an excellent workout. That evening I went out to eat before heading over to the drive-in to meet up with a few friends. I checked my geocache app and learned that a cache was near the restaurant, so I went over and found it - my first solo find! I put a couple photos from the weekend up here.
I wanted to set up a cache near my house. Turns out that I can't because there already are caches within 0.1 mile of my house. Someone went along 3rd street and put a cache at each bus stop. Oh well. I'll have to find another location for it.
On Labor Day I planned to go kayaking on another river. I had been in the nursery until 1am so I wound up sleeping in late. Just as well. I went back to the nursery to pick up a muskrat to release in a nearby NW suburb. When I returned I found 2 geocaches in the park adjoining the nursery.
Last week was the staged reading of Noir(ish) which I directed. We had our second (and final) rehearsal the Thursday before. The actors were fabulous! They breathed life and depth into their characters. I was thrilled to work with that cast and I hope to do so again.