Herd of Wild 'Elephants'

To me, this little guy looks very familiar. Well, maybe minus the little 'skunk stripe' down his back - but, yeah I know his little face all too well! That's because we have about a million of 'him' in our back yard. Now, granted this little dude, I think, is a Chipmunk (plus, I'm pretty impressed with this picture and the fabulous photographer who captured it) . . . his cousin the squirrel is making our lives interesting.

Years ago, when we would travel to a larger town south of us, I would see squirrels scampering about the city streets and think, "Oh, aren't they the cutest? Wouldn't it be fun to have them living in OUR trees?" Little did I know! Little did I know they multiply like 'plastic shopping bags' - you can never get to the bottom of the pile - know what I mean . . . Cameron does! Many years later my little dream came true and all of a sudden, one day, there he was . . . a squirrel sitting on our balcony trying to slurp up frozen water in our waterfall! THEN, I would have carefully chipped a hole through the ice so he could drink. NOW, I wish his tongue would get stuck to the frozen water . . . FOREVER! Yes, I'm a Christian woman and wicked little thoughts like this creep into my mind whenever I see one of these little demons!

Now, after many years, the population has grown enormous and at any given time you can see three of four squirrels playing in the front yard - chasing each other then slowly walk to the back and find many more running from tree to tree then jumping onto the house and using our very old shake roof for 'chariot races'! They don't scamper with their tiny little feet - they sound like a herd of wild 'elephants' with a mission to destroy the roof that protects our happy little abode!

I'll never forget the first time Bob thought he was going to be 'game warden' and control the squirrel population. He went way in the back of his closet and emerged with a rifle . . .yes, a rifle! This wasn't funny - well, it actually would have been had he been wearing a Davy Crockett coon hat from Disneyland! He marched out into the yard as if he were actually going after a herd of wild 'elephants'. I thought this was a bit overkill (pardon the pun) for a little fury-brown-thing. But, he was determined and with that determination he produced a dead little fury-brown-thing! Yikes . . . I didn't speak to him for weeks! Thus, he ventured to the local farm store and brought home silver traps that would do no harm to the creature being trapped, that is unless you trap them and you forget about them! But anyway, we've been very successful in transplanting as many as 50 squirrels to local parks - alive. We keep getting this strange sensation that they're finding their way back time and time again! ! !

Funny footnote to this - when Ashley was here visiting last week, we were in the kitchen - just hanging out. Then all of a sudden we see a squirrel on the window ledge standing straight up, looking right inside the house as if you or I were trying to look through the glass with hands on either side of your face! I thought, "Holy cow, this is a brave (or crazy) squirrel!" One thing I did notice in a big way . . . this squirrel had nipples . . . and I'm a pro at nipples because . . . well, you know, Dottie. That only means one thing! We're going to be catching squirrels for a very long time to come. I'm going to head over to "FOODPornGIRLS" and see if there's a good recipe for . . . . well, you know!

Journal Entry or A Smattering of This and That:

• Our cute little puppies are delivered to their new homes and I might say, there were three 'big people' doing some crying (identity to remain anonymous)
• Tyler & Nicole travel to Utah and deliver little fury bundles of joy to new pet-parents
• Checked in with Cindy to make sure their family & home in California are safe - all is well
• Checked in on Kandee to see if we 'have a baby' yet and it's occurring to me that we're NOT going to be here for our grand babies arrival - first one we'll miss and that really is sucky
• Spoke with Cameron tonight and he MAY meet us in California for a little Disney-action