I’ll get to the squirrels in a minute, but I have to say something about the beautiful flowers that are so diligently and, with great talent, cultivated by Donna Sue.
She really does have a green thumb, but also doesn’t mind the “sweat equity” it takes to have pots of blooming flowers.
Just walking out the back door and onto the wooden deck brings me into the presence of a variety of lilies, mostly survivors of past Easters.
Of course there are the white ones, but there are also orange ones and deep, purplish red ones. They are at their peak right now.
There is also the fragrance of the Confederate Jasmine that “we” planted either last year or the year before.
I used the word “we” in quotation marks because I just wanted to be a part of the story.
If I don’t remember when it was planted, that gives a little clue as to my involvement.
I am responsible for the knock-out roses that are a part of the scenery. They say you can’t kill a knock-out rose and that must be true for it has survived even my lack of care.
Plenty of other kinds of flowers are blooming or about to, but I don’t know the names of them.
There is a red one, a blue one, some pink ones, and quite possibly a lavender one. Not only do I not know the names, I can’t even describe the colors. Except the gardenias.
They are white and I love the smell of gardenias.
The smell of gardenias reminds me of an old girlfriend who used to wear that perfume by the name of Jungle Gardenia. That’s a story best left alone.
I have enjoyed all the flowers and there are many more to come as the year progresses, but the addition of the squirrel feeder has brought a lot of joy, too.
We put the squirrel feeder up a couple of weeks ago.
The box that it came in said it was a bird feeder and we bought bird seed feed to go in it, but make no mistake about it, it’s a squirrel feeder.
Every now and then a brown thrasher, a cardinal or a blue jay may land upon it and commence to eating lunch or dinner, whatever, but pretty soon the squirrels run them off.
The feeder is on a metal pole, one that looks like a shepherd’s crook with the end turned up so the feeder may be hung. The feeder itself is metal and attached to a foot-long chain and hangs down.
Four short perches correspond to the four holes in the feeder. I suppose in a perfect world birds would light upon the perches and eat the food. But not in our backyard.
Tremendously acrobatic squirrels shimmy up the metal pole to the top of the crook and hang by their tails, upside-down, and steal the bird seed.
Not only does one squirrel climb up and commit thievery, but it also shovels it out of the holes to other squirrels on the ground just a-waiting.
The late, great Little Bit, our dog, would have been on those squirrels like white on rice.
There may be hope yet.
Donna Sue is talking to the squirrels and it’s possible that they will obey her and stay away.
I’m not sure, but she has done a marvelous job with the flowers. And me, proving anything possible.