My husband the gardener disapproves, but I’ve got a new squirrel-friend:
She (pretty sure it’s a girl) recently started raiding one of the porch feeders, which is okay by me. I’m going to get some peanuts for her next time I’m out.
Open thread!
Reader Interactions
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laura
Fierce Smize on your squirrel girl!
Also, it’s hot as the hinges of hell here in Sacto. We’re hunkered down with a Giants DBacks day game so “coping.”
lowtechcyclist
There’s no point in bothering to try to keep squirrels out of bird feeders. They’re smart and persistent and will find a way.
pacem appellant
Mark Rober, of YouTube, drives me batty with his squirrel training and feeding escapades. Since he lives in my neighborhood, he’s just further domesticating the already noisome pests.
retiredeng
Just remember to get unsalted peanuts.
MagdaInBlack
My squirrel is Pearl the Squirrel. In the evening we sit on the balcony, she has peanuts, I have iced tea, we discuss the day. =-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
One of Joe Manchin’s good Republicans. I wonder why Stacey Abrams’ support would color Senator Blunt’s view in this way?
Elizabelle
Biden and MVP Harris arriving to sign the Juneteenth legislation, and both will make remarks
Standing ovation from the audience.
cope
They have figured out how to gymnastic themselves up to the feeder hanging from the ceiling of our front porch as well. Their latest assault is on our hummingbird feeder from which they like to take long quaffs of sweet, sweet nectar. Le sigh.
lowtechcyclist
@MagdaInBlack:
Does she share any pearls of wisdom?
mikefromArlington
You’ll like this.
Squirrel obstacle corse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTvS9lvRxZ8
Drunkenhausfrau
Your dogs don’t go nuts? My Otis chases them even in his dreams.
SiubhanDuinne
I know squirrels can be terrible pests, but I’ve always had a great fondness for them. That’s a particularly attractive squirrel.
Different subject, Joe’s about to sign the Juneteenth Bill.
Elizabelle
WaPost homepage has link to Biden and VP Harris, who is speaking now, and absolutely delighted with the occasion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
germy
trollhattan
That’s the type of thing up with which my dog would not put. Show-quality point and then either barking (if inside or it’s far up on a wire) or a sudden bolt at said squirrel.
It’s the law.
On the topic of yard critters, we have for the first time in years doves nesting in our persimmon, out on a mesh platform I placed on a far-reaching branch and hopefully away from, yes, squirrels and rats that raid nests. The above-referenced bird dog has NOT noticed yet and I’m hoping to keep it that way. If there are fledglings I have a new problem to address.
Another Scott
In other news, …
Hmmm….
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@mikefromArlington:
That’s a absolutely epic video and gizmo geek-out. I want his job!
lowtechcyclist
@cope:
Now that’s a new one to me! I’ve had a hummingbird feeder hanging outside the window next to my desk, last year and this. While I’m working, I see every time a hummer visits. But no squirrels have even shown an interest.
MattF
News from the home front— just got real broadband (Verizon Fios) installed. It’s somewhere between 20 and 100 times faster than my old service, depending on the device. But we’re talking 100’s of Mbps. The surprise is that it’s actually cheaper than the old service. Go figure.
Elizabelle
VP Harris: “We must learn from our history, and we must teach our children our history.”
This just after bringing up the recent commemoration of the Tulsa Massacre. Which she called a massacre.
mrmoshpotato
@laura:
Safe to say congrats on the Giants’ W.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I saw what you did there.
Elizabelle
What not a surprise that Texas was the last holdout in maintaining slavery. Texas, Texas, Texas.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Eh…I don’t exist but you all still talk to me.
Betty Cracker
@Drunkenhausfrau: The squirrel is really good at avoiding the dogs. They would go ape-shit if they saw her!
@cope: Never seen a squirrel do that — you must have particularly smart squirrels!
trollhattan
My dogs gonna dog follow up is that while pretty much everybody’s dog that I know DEMANDS THAT SQUIRREL the only one I have ever known to actually achieve that squirrel-getting was Walter the JRT. Walter was a natural born killer.
pacem appellant
@mikefromArlington: Did you not see my comment above? Stop encouraging him!
Major Major Major Major
Omgosh, I love her!
Omnes Omnibus
So my dad had a heart attack two weeks ago. He is doing well; they put in one stent and it is taking care of business. With Fathers’ Day coming up, I want to get him some heart healthy (low sodium) spicy mixes from Penzey’s. Any suggestions? Being in Madison, we have a brick and mortar Penzey’s that I am going to head out to in a little bit.
Elizabelle
Betty C: your squirrel is very appealing. I think she might be named Eloise.
What ever happened to the albino squirrel at the previous Casa Cracker?
mrmoshpotato
@cope:
How do they get to the nectar?
Cameron
My friend down on Siesta Key has a house cat who loves to go out on her lanai and stalk the rabbits and squirrels from indoors. I told her that’s his version of a video game.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Particularly egregious comment from that corrupt fuck-nugget, but we all know Republicans aren’t interested in any measure that will expand ballot access since their entire political strategy hinges on suppressing the vote. Manchin may be dumb enough to believe it — who knows?
Anoniminous
Yesterday
Lordstown has binding orders, says limited production starts this year
“Lordstown Motors has been having a tough time recently. The Ohio-based electric truck startup was accused of misleading investors about the extent of its order books, leading to an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This in turn led the company to issue a “going concern” warning, followed by the departure of its CEO and CFO.
But on Tuesday, a day after the executive resignations, the company stated that limited production of its Endurance work truck will begin later this year. Lordstown’s president Rich Schmidt told journalists at a press event that there were enough “binding orders” to fund this limited production until May 2022 …”
Today
Lordstown Motors now says that it has no binding orders for EV truck
“… on Thursday morning, Lordstown sent the US Securities and Exchange Commission a new Form 8-K revealing that those binding orders are nothing of the sort.”
President Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine praise Lordstown when it bought the former General Motors plant in 2019 calling it “the future of Youngstown manufacturing.”
Elizabelle
Joe just brought up “the sacred right to vote, under attack.”
Good speech about all the concrete things we can do to ensure equality. Education, health.
They’re doing more outreach on vaccines; there is a racial gap in those who have received them.
Today is the 6th anniversary of the Mother Emmanuel deaths.
“Hate only hides. It never goes away …. it breathes oxygen under that rock.”
Ken
Mention of squirrels and peanuts reminds me that Tom Lehrer recently put his entire catalog in the public domain.
? And maybe we’ll do in a squirrel or two, as we poison the pigeons in the park…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: the Blunts and the Portmans, the ones running away from the mess they made, are just a different kind of scummy than the Hawleys and the Cottons. Call it “pulling a Snowe”
Elizabelle
This is a transformational presidency.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Eloise — that’s good!
I’m in touch with a couple of neighbors who say the white squirrels still roam the old ‘hood. They aren’t albino squirrels — black eyes, not pink. At this point, we’re sure it’s a genetic thing that has carried on through generations because we first saw a white squirrel there more than 10 years ago, and there’s no way it’s the same squirrel!
rikyrah
@cope:
I think AL had frontpaged a video from a guy who put an entire obstacle course in his backyard, and how the squirrels were smart enough to figure it out. Cracked me up.
Leto
@pacem appellant: what’s that? Like and subscribe? Already did!
mrmoshpotato
@Another Scott: “the Uber for helicopters and chartered jets” Oh for fuck’s sake!
I’d love to meet the investors. I have a business proposal of “Give me heaps of money!”
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m glad he is doing ok.
piratedan
@mrmoshpotato: The DBacks get their top starter back for this game, but considering the imaginative ways they’ve found to lose thus far (22 road games in a row… and counting), I would still like the chances of Los Gigantes.
Ken
Oh, I dunno. An immortal white squirrel sounds pretty believable to me, but maybe I read too many of the wrong kind of books.
Ken
“Not actually making anything and lying to investors to get more money for executive bonuses” is a kind of future.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Baudbot 2024!
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you previously posted about this, I missed it. All best wishes to your dad for a good recovery and full return to robust health. I’m only just getting to know Penzey’s so can’t give you much advice, but I would think anyone at their b&m store would be full of good suggestions.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Glad to hear he’s on the mend! My mom was a cardiac care nurse for about 30 years (retired in 2013 or so), and she used to marvel at the advances in care she’d seen over her career and said it was the simple things like stents that made such a huge difference in people’s lives. It was a simple fix once they figured out the complicated technology to place the hardware.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
I thought it was a very moving ceremony.
kindness
Where I grew up in the NYC suburbs we used to go to CT every summer. The clan had several homes on the shore, one of them was my folks. My grandfather (who used to live at the house in Tarrytown while we were in CT) used to tame the squirrels every summer feeding them peanuts. And every year after Labor Day when we came back, those poor squirrels would get shocked to meet our dog who loved chasing squirrels (but never caught one thank the FSM). He’d tame the local skunks too. There would be 2 parents and 8 baby skunks eating peanuts at your feet. Have I ever said how adorable baby skunks are? They are. Except they wouldn’t run and climb trees when my dog chased them. They’d just hose down the dog with skunk juice. Took a few years for my parents pleading with Grandpa not to feed the skunks before he stopped doing it. Out here in the Central Valley of Ca, we have mostly ground squirrels rather than tree squirrels. I’m not nearly as much a fan of ground squirrels. Such is life I guess.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I did not post about it previously and only mentioned it now because I am searching for recommendations. Thanks for the good wishes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
It absolutely is. I’m so grateful I’m alive to watch it happen and be, in a small way, a participant.
germy
Auntie Anne
@Omnes Omnibus: the Italian salt-free is really good. Get that one for sure! i also like the Arizona Dreaming, although I use it less often – Daddy at 86 is not an adventurous eater.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: It was. Good history lesson, too.
mrmoshpotato
@piratedan: Exactly. And I suspect the Dodgers are gonna wipe the field with them in Phoenix.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve become a huge fan of their Adobo seasoning. Salt-free. Really nice flavor without being overpowering. I put it on just about any meat after cooking.
HTH.
Quick recovery to your Papa!
Cheer,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Full recovery and flavorful food to your dad!
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: For a few moments at the signing, I thought I saw John Cornyn (!) at the back of the group. But couldn’t be, right? (I was listening, not watching, most of it.)
lowtechcyclist
@germy:
Rosendale’s party tried to replace July 4th with January 6th.
He is welcome to go fuck himself.
Another Scott
@Anoniminous: Saw that.
Pump and Dump?
Dunno. But someone needs to be asking them pointed questions, stat!
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: LOhuh?
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker:
There are two basic types of white squirrels: albino and leucistic. Albinos have pink or blue eyes and no dark pigments anywhere on their bodies. Squirrels that have white coats and dark eyes are called leucistic. Another type of white squirrel is predominantly white and sports a dark head patch and stripe on its back. The white-phase gray squirrel I saw a few years ago was leucistic.
We overwhelmingly have grey squirrels here in NoVA though I have seen at least one black one and one albino in the last 30-mumble years.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: Cornyn was the main sponsor in the Senate. He had good things to say after it passed the Senate.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott:
Aha. Thank you. That ‘splains it.
ellenr
@Omnes Omnibus:
Herbes de Provence
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Glad your dad is doing well! I tend to get individual spices from them, which I love, but that’s no help to you. Jealous that you get to go to a real Penzey’s store. I can still remember the smells from the one I went to years ago.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I bet it would have gone over a lot better with republicans if Stacey Abrams hated it.
Cameron
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought that was one of those immature obscene things that frat boys did.
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus:
I would say go to where they have the little bags of spices and try them. I got to try out a lot of their spices that way.
I absolutely love and buy in the large jars
Granulated garlic
Lemon Pepper
Greek Seasoning
They have a good non-salt seasoning, I can’t remember the name, but, I always buy it.
Bonne herbs
Herbs de provence
rikyrah
@Omnes Omnibus:
Glad that your Dad is doing better :)
rikyrah
@germy:
Moments.
Moments.
Slavery was from 1619 – 1865.
A MOMENT?
the FREEING OF SLAVES WAS A DARK MOMENT?
debbie
That is one healthy-looking squirrel! The squirrels around here are scrawny and their tails are even scrawnier.
debbie
@rikyrah:
This bitch was on my local NPR radio station this morning expounding about her bill to prohibit indoctrination.
I will skip linking to the audio because it’s a very maddening 20-minute segment.
Kayla Rudbek
@Omnes Omnibus: sunny Paris and Justice are on my list to buy more, so those are my first two suggestions. They make even egg substitute taste good.
Kayla Rudbek
@Betty Cracker: there’s an opposite mutation for black squirrels as well. I think that the National Zoo had some, and then some of them escaped and/or interbred with the native grey squirrels. So now DC has black squirrels as well as grey…
Elizabelle
@Kayla Rudbek: Yes! There were black squirrels in upper Georgetown. It was startling.
rikyrah
@Kayla Rudbek:
THE most aggressive squirrels that I have ever seen were in Washington, D.C. I mean, they came right up to you. Stood there, waiting for you to feed them. Didn’t move at all when you told them to ‘ shoo’. Had never seen anything like it, and I’ve been an Urban dweller all my life.
NeenerNeener
A friend of mine had a chipmunk living in her coat closet all winter. The cat brought it in and when she convinced him to drop it, it suddenly sprang to life and dived under the closet door and she couldn’t get it out. She tried several different types of traps which the ‘munk defeated with ease. She built a protected runway for it from the closet to the back porch out of Amazon boxes and locked the cats in the garage. She heard it move from the closet out to the back deck but when she went to close the sliding glass door it ran back inside and dove into the closet again, so she resigned herself to living with it until the next warm spell. She rigged up a little water bowl and fed it lettuce and nuts all winter. She even bought it a little hamster bed and it used it! Unfortunately just as the weather started turning for the better she found it dead next to its little bed.
Elizabelle
@NeenerNeener: Bittersweet little story.
I wonder how long chipmunks live. Your friend’s may have increased its life chances by moving into the closet
ETA: Wiki informs chipmunks live about 3 years; up to 9 in captivity.
In my old neighborhood, my neighbor’s cat was death on the wildlife. Chipmunks, birds, baby birds. I actually liked the cat, but I hated its prowess and body count. (The cat would actually bang on the screen door and come in and visit me. Funny cat.)
NeenerNeener
@Elizabelle: Yeah, there was no way to tell how old it was when it moved indoors. It might have been fairly elderly for a chipmunk, which is how the cat may have caught it in the first place. The last time I talked to her she said there’s a pregnant-looking one that’s been coming right up to the patio door and she’s afraid it wants in too.
Elizabelle
@NeenerNeener: That’s funny. The word’s out in the neighborhood about your friend’s hospitable lodgings.
pacem appellant
@Leto: I mean, yeah, support my awesome anti-theft neighbor and his glitterbomb habits, but the squirrel stuff… alright, the squirrels are pretty amazing. I prefer the birds but to each their own aerial entertainment.
cckids
They’ve got nothing on the squirrels in Zion NP. 12 years ago, my daughter & I were hiking one of the popular trails in the canyon, and saw a German tourist trying to get a close-up pic of a squirrel by pretending to have food in his hand; speaking German to it. The squirrel just ran over, briefly hesitated, then just climbed up his jeans. The guy frantically switched to English (lol), saying “I have no food!! I have no food!” as the cute rodent headed for his face. My daughter the quick thinker, grabbed a pretzel & lured the critter off the guy, then when it tried following her, scolded it firmly. It left.
Since that time, Zion has had a major campaign to get people to stop feeding the wildlife; yes, even the squirrels. They can be little disease vectors.
Omnes Omnibus
Back from Penzey’s. I bought a gift box with Bavarian, Sunny Spain, Chili Powder, Tuscan Sunset, Adobo, Jerk, Murals of Flavor, and their Pasta Sprinkle.
Suburban Mom
@Omnes Omnibus: I know you asked about blends, but if he doesn’t have smoked paprika that could be a nice addition to his collection. I find it so flavorful that salt becomes unnecessary. It comes with different levels of heat, so you’ll want to base any purchase on his preference. It’s good on fish, and chicken, and is also nice with some legumes and grilled veggies.
Suburban Mom
@Omnes Omnibus: And I see I’m late. Those sound like great options.
debbie
@Suburban Mom:
I love their smoked paprika, but hate how my apartment smells like it for days afterward.
J R in WV
Years ago I visited some more distant cousins in NE rural Ohio… they had a nice place on the edge of town, with rural space north of the home. There were a ton of black squirrels all around their back yard.
They told us they have had those black squirrels for years now. So cute!
Ken
As in black plague, in the western US.
karen marie
@Anoniminous: Pretty much what one would expect from a Trump-endorsed entity.
pluky
@Betty Cracker:
Leucastic, not albino.
Jenny Howard
UNHEALTHY FOODS
Unhealthy foods won’t necessarily cause lasting harm to squirrels but should still be limited.
High-sugar foods (candy, cookies, granola, sweetened breakfast cereals)
High-starch foods (pasta, bread, rice, potatoes)
Salty foods
Human junk food
Cashews
Sunflower seeds
Dried corn
Pine nuts
Healthy nuts include: acorns, pumpkin seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, and peanuts (unsalted).
Leave shells on, it’s good for their teeth.
Careful with the peanuts, their nutritional value is low and raw they can harbor toxic mold.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@kindness: Where I lived (Bay Area) and live (inland Mendocino) we have tree squirrels who are a mixture of charming and obnoxious. I feed them raw almonds, which they seem to like :-)
The most interesting thing I know about ground squirrels is that they have been engaged in an evolving chemical battle with rattlesnakes for hundred of years. They are highly resistant to rattlesnake venom, so the snakes become even more deadly, and then the squirrels become resistant to the deadlier venom. It would be more of a problem living with rattlesnakes at our place (as we do), except rattlesnakes are so low-key and avoid trouble at any opportunity. Really. Unless you step on one or corner it, they will leave the area as soon as they realize we are there.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Kayla Rudbek: Palo Alto where I grew up has both grey and black squirrels. The black squirrels’ tails are not as fluffy as the grey squirrels but otherwise, they act the same (running around on the back fences).
RAM
Squirrels always look so innocent. In reality, while your average squirrel has the appearance of a cozy plush happy toy, it also has the brain of a crazed ax murderer.
Denali
@Ommes,
Glad your Dad is doing well. For spices, I would suggest Vindaloo for pork seasoning. It is commonly used in Goa in India.