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?  

That Was Exciting

Well, that was exciting. 

Yep, we had some storms roll though last night, and they kind of caught me by surprise.  

Oh, I'd seen the weather warnings and all, but the last few times we were under thunderstorm warnings, they went all around us, and we didn't get anything.  But that's what weather does to you.  It lulls you into a false sense of security, then

WHAM!!

It hits you like a ton of bricks. 

We didn't get much rain, but a lot of thunder and wind.  Even so, I was on my way to work this morning, looking around as I drove, and thinking there didn't seem to be that much damage.  

I turned onto Riverdale Road, still not seeing too much damage or anything, when up ahead I saw some debris in the road.

"Oh, there are some twigs and branches down....Whoa!  That's a whole tree!"  

I slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting it.  Fortunately, it wasn't all the way across the road and I was able to ease my way around it and go on to work, but let's just say I didn't need my morning coffee to get myself awake after that. 

Also, there were foxes.  

For real.  Foxes.  I'd seen them last week darting across the road, but wasn't sure if they were foxes or cats.  This morning, I saw one in my headlights and it was definitely a red fox. 

Which, of course, brings to mind Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  Which is the whole reason I'm trying to learn French -- so I can read it in the original language.  

But I digress...

I spent all day long at work thinking I would need to come home and go find my trash can...not sure why, but there it is.  And when I got home, there my garbage can was, right where it was supposed to be.  

And me, I'm all ready for the next storm. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go practice my French. 

Laters

Wildlife

OK, Y'all...I was walking Rylea this afternoon, and we hadn't gotten very far from the house when I heard a screech--like a bird screech. I didn't think too much of it, because we have red tailed hawks all over the place. They screech at me all the time. Imagine my surprise when I looked up and it wasn't a red tailed hawk. It was a flippin BALD EAGLE!!!!!

Of all days for me not to have my camera. It wouldn't have done any good anyway, because all I could do was stand there with my mouth hanging open, saying, "that's a bald eagle!" And there was nobody to tell. I finally had the presence of mind to dig out my phone and try to take a photo with it, but by that time he was too far away.

I knew they lived around here, because they have that eagle census down at the lake every year, but this is the first time I ever saw one. It's the first time I've ever seen a wild eagle at all.


One day earlier this week, I was letting Rylea out very early in the morning. A weird noise was coming from the woods next door. As soon as she heard it, Ry took off barking that hound dog yawp she has, and whatever it was screamed.

"Dadgum," I thought. "That sounds like a panther!"

It sounded like this: Cougar Sound, especially that last bit.

A day or two later, I was walking Rylea. We walk down this dirt road, and we're always seeing tracks. Dog, and coyote tracks, deer tracks, possum, raccoon, rabbit...even snake tracks. Anyway, this day, I spotted something that was very unusual. It was kind of like a dog track, but not exactly the right shape. It was wider than a dog track, and had no claw marks. It was also a lot larger than any of the dogs around here. The track was about as big as my hand. It looked a lot like the sketch found here.

I stopped and looked at the track, and said out loud, "That looks like a panther track!" I kept my eyes open, but didn't see any more, and I haven't seen one since. Now, I don't know that there are panthers in Mississippi. Maybe what I was hearing and seeing was a bobcat--a very big bobcat, but I don't know. I just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.