Mystery Solved

The mystery has finally been solved!

"And what mystery is that?" you may ask.  

Well, I'll tell you.  As many of you already know, I have a squirrel feeder out behind my back fence.  I typically fill it with deer corn, because it's cheaper than squirrel food.  Usually, when I fill it completely up, it takes the squirrels about a week to empty it.  Or if I only fill it halfway, it takes them 3-4 days.  

Here lately, however, after I fill it up, and it's been completely empty the next day.  At first, I thought the deer had figured out where all that corn was coming from and were eating out of the squirrel feeder, but no.  I watched them for a few days and they weren't touching the corn still in the feeder-- just the stuff the squirrels threw on the ground.  

Last night, I finally discovered where all the corn was going when I opened the back door to let the cat out...and there was a flipping trash panda out there!  

(Not my Photo).  

It would seem I've progressed to feeding raccoons.  Oh well, all are welcome at this dinner table.  Even trash pandas. 

(Not my photo, either.)  

Speaking of dinner tables, my tabasco peppers are coming along nicely.  

I'm hoping enough will ripen at the same time that I can make fresh tabasco sauce, but if not, I'll string and dry them.  I was planning on doing that to the cayenne peppers anyway, unless Cody and Brennan can make it up here in time to get them some fresh ones.  I don't know.  It's been a lot of fun growing them, but I'm not really a pepper person.  I don't think I'll plant any next year. 

Oh, and look at this!  I got some sunflower seeds!

They were harder to get out of the flower than I expected them to be, so with that in mind, I went ahead and took all the cheesecloth off of the other flowers. If I lose a few seeds in the process, oh well.  I'll still have plenty.  I'll most likely plant these instead of eating them, and the rest I'll save for the birds.  In fact, it's still pretty early in the year -- relatively speaking.  I might just go ahead and plant some of these now.  Well, not now now, but maybe this weekend.  Or tomorrow. 

So, yesterday we had a bit of a breeze blowing all afternoon, and my tall sunflowers were all laid over.  They weren't completely flattened, but were leaning pretty far  -- so much so that even the stakes were bent.   I didn't have any taller stakes, so I got my garden twine, my ladder, and a bit of good old American ingenuity and tethered them to the hooks I hang my Christmas lights on. 

I figured if those hooks can continuously snag my flag, they can support a sunflower.  It seems to be working so far.  

If I ever grow any more of these really tall ones, I won't put them so close to the house next time.  I think it was the wind shearing off of the roof that affected them so.  

Well, I have more to talk about, but this is already turning into a novel, so I'll just leave you with this:  At 12:25 PM today, it was hotter at my work station than it was outside. 

 Fortunately, the heat is supposed to break by Wednesday -- if you can call dropping from 99 to 94 "breaking".  I just hope my air conditioner holds out. 

Is there a patron saint of air conditioners?  Does anyone know?