An older friend who doesn’t drive anymore needed a lift. As we drove the main road coming home, I was keeping an eye out: I’d seen one around there several times before, and then–Ooooh, look! as I grabbed my eyes back to the road, hoping she would see what I meant before we passed it. It was sitting on the telephone wire, being anything but their usual stealthy.

“That’s *beautiful*!” she exclaimed, her head turning to follow it as the car continued on.

“That’s a Cooper’s hawk,” and I wondered if it was one that might have fledged from our nest two miles away. I was so delighted that she was as thrilled as I was; thank you, Gail.

Dropped her off, came home to my own quiet house, had a hard time getting myself to relax and sit down and accomplish some knitting. There’s a lot going on. Cancer surgery for the wife of someone we know, Richard covering some of their job at work just like they did for him when I was sick, and cancer treatment outcome tests this week for a relative of ours.

Our daughter Sam is doing better and for that, and for all those who have reached out to help her in any way, we are infinitely grateful.

I sat down at the computer.

It’s nesting season. He always seems to be more sociable during nesting season, and so, with a feeling of someone’s eyes, I looked up to see my male Cooper’s standing on the box just the other side of the window, looking in at me. People watching. Beautiful, beautiful, big bird, and I birdwatched back at him. He opened his beak and spoke in hawk talk that I wished I could understand, and then, having said hello, flew.

Maybe an hour and a half later, there he was again. Right there. Getting my attention and posing for the camera I wished I had in my hands. Looking at the look of wonder in my face.

And he came back again! But that time I didn’t see him behind me till I laughed at a Frazz comic, I think the one where one of the elementary kids asks why the Thanksgiving people dressed like color blind leprechauns?

And with that, a swoop of the wings and there he was, on his way by. His work here was done for today.

I can cope with anything now. And I went off to Purlescence, where, surrounded by good friends, I knitted towards making someone happy.

This one‘s for DebbieR especially.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been pregnant, which means it’s been a long time since I had to monitor sugar intake for diabetes. I’m out of practice. I spent today cleaning, shopping, baking, pricing slicing dicing hoping.

I think I did okay by the folks who enjoyed my dinner.

And in the middle of all that prepping I sat down a moment and looked up in time to see the incoming hawk: a quick turnaround at the feeder, back to the telephone wires to get a good look in all directions as it shifted its feet to turn here, then here, then back across the yard towards me again, across my roof and away.

All in definitely under ten seconds. Blink. Wow.

Did you see the video Sherry linked to in the last post? This one, and thank you, Sherry. I have a birding friend who has seen robins fledging and she’s sure that’s what that was: a baby robin at first flight, playing air guitar. (I love how the little bird cranes her head up at the singer as he sings to her.)

Its momma expected it to land in the lawn but it wanted bluegrass, for sure.

As I knit some ice rose dk silk from Colourmart (if they have any colors left at all on that page tomorrow. US postage is included.) Oh, and if you want some really nice shawl patterns, Purlescence has my book in stock. Just sayin’.

I made a mistake on this new pattern and I knew what I’d done. It was easy to fudge; the instructions I wrote were correct, it was just me that wasn’t. Just lift a strand between stitches and call it a yarnover and no one could ever tell–but the moment I made that decision rather than rip back, it wasn’t book knitting. Book knitting has to be done perfectly, checking every stitch and counting across on every row; this one’s the learning-as-I-go version, then.

And a really really pretty learning-as-I-go shawl. But it’s only fair anyway; there’s no point in dangling a yarn that’s an industry remnant that may or may not be repeated (and I knew that from the start). Truth is, I was simply knitting this, for the moment, to make me happy, while wondering where it will end up.

Sea Silk next time. I have some waiting its turn.

Birds. Scene: suet cake in a green wire cage, hanging down in the middle of the patio where there’s nothing for a squirrel to jump from to get at it. A house finch pecking away at it–or trying to.

Except that finches have this profound need to be at the top and the top half of that cake was already gone. She’d landed at the bottom, where there was plenty, but climbed up to where there was none no matter how many times she jabbed her head hard in there as far as she could reach. She did it again and again, straining as if she could squeeze her shoulders inside the cage too.

Air headed.

Later, I had someone working in my yard today (that branch gouging the side of the house after the storms had to go) and I had to stop and go out and explain to him why I was looking out the window and laughing: not at him.

One of my fearless little chickadees had flown to that wire cage and then realized late that there was an intruder, it was big, and it was quite close. And coming closer. Bigfoot!

And so it froze. There was no escape without giving its position away. It froze so perfectly and for so very long that I wondered if it was okay–I’ve been watching my birds for three years and I’ve never seen that behavior before. I’ve assumed it, after they’ve scattered from a hawk and melted into the trees, but I’ve never seen it up close.

Having caught on too late to zoom towards safety, the little bird was playing possum; if it couldn’t get away, at least it could blend in and become one with half a suet cake, the top of its head bowed to it as if in reverence.

The man was delighted. Seldom does wildlife stick around to be admired when he’s at work. I loved that he loved that it did.

Found another Frazz comic that made me laugh. (Well, they all do, but hey. Birds.)

Saw something new today: a squirrel with its nose pressing hard against the wooden box, squeezing its pointy little face as far as it could go underneath, right next to one of the 2x2s the box is resting on (ie as far from me as it could get while trying this). Two inch space: the final frontier.

That’s where I occasionally toss food for my wrens when they’re being shut out by the bigger, more assertive birds: only the Bewick’s will dash into that tight, dark space, and even they have to duck their tails down. Not even the chickadees explore there. Perfect.

As I’ve mentioned before, northern California is the only area left where those wrens have a healthy population and I am determined to take good care of mine. They are the tiniest birds with the biggest burst of song, many songs.

That left black paw was just about to sweep and grab to try to finish the job. I’d seen dog fur already shaped into a circle vigorously disappearing under there before with a wren going at it; there might well be an active nest and I didn’t know how far back it was.

Ooh, tasty nestlings!

Boundaries clearly needed to be reestablished and my initial foot stomp and loud GIT! wasn’t going to cut it. Time to bring out the big guns.

I have a bright red shopping bag, about as tall as an inquisitive big Fox squirrel, with twine tied to its handle at one end, and I set it up coming in at the side of the glass door with the twine tied to a cardboard tube at my end for a nice handle. I put some beat up store-bought pie crust tins and random broken ceramic bits in it for a nice noisemaker effect and to keep it anchored in the breeze.

(I know. What would Scott say. I bought the pie crusts.)

The door was closed. I was inside, innocent as could be.  Waited.

Took awhile. A black one and a clearly pregnant gray (yeah, I saw what you two were doing the other day, so do we get to see speckled squirrels? Palominos? As close as I’ll get to my childhood wish for a pony.) They took turns on the patio for awhile, and finally both were there at once and it was getting a bit crowded under the feeder. So one sniffed, then took cautious, tentative steps where it knew that peanut-suet crumble was hiding….

BAM! That bag was outside right there close to them–it came flying and crashing and those two marauders nearly risked a sonic boom. Just missed crashing into each other, too.

If I had to spend all afternoon working out the math on a pattern I’d thought was already ready to go (well, it is now), a bit of squirrel fishing certainly brightened the day.

But I would love to be able to do what a member of the peregrine forum told me she does: she buys mealworms at Los Gatos Birdwatcher, then throws them in the air and the waiting phoebes see her and catch them! Wow.

And you know who the cleanup crew would be.  It’s only fair.

First, the chocolate.

About 25 years ago, when we’d just moved here, some friends dragged us over to a new shop at Stanford Mall with, You’ve got to try this!

That was the first time we heard the word truffles being used to describe something that was most definitely not a mushroom.

Cocolat was wildly popular, several other shops followed, and then a fire at the central bakery shut the business down, a still-lamented loss.

Alice Medrich, the owner, wrote several dessert books after that; Cocolat‘s  photos were an immediate delight to the locals–oooh, I remember that! And that!

She mentioned in her writing that when she’d first opened up, she’d started off making the truffles far too big but by the time she realized that, her customers were used to buying them that way and so, big they’d stayed.

I well remember that. That was what we’d been told we had to try and what we’d come back for for special occasions.

After Steve finished his first truffle last night, he mentioned (clearly not minding overly) that they were too big.

He couldn’t know I was thrilled nor why.

But he and she were both right: because a chocolate truffle should be small enough that you don’t have to hold it melting in your hand as you take several bites to get through the whole thing; too messy. Small is good.

I thought of that today as I decided to experiment with Michelle’s coconut cream. Could I make good dairy-free truffles?

One 6.8 oz box of that cream, a small one for the learning experience. I melted in 300 g of dark chocolate (I was determined to measure carefully this time.)

I just finished rolling small (!) balls of that now-chilled coconut ganache in my Bergenfield cocoa. The coconut taste is very minor in the background; the chocolate totally rules. The texture is just right. Nailed it.

There you go–I found it. That’s a bigger box than mine but a much better price than Amazon’s. Note that the shipping price is the same for one or ten and one of those big boxes is the right size for making two chocolate tortes. Just sayin’.

And the chickadee? You’re looking at the top of its head straight on at the camera at the bottom of the picture.

Last year my friend Kathy gave me a bagfull of soft fur combed from her dog and I set some out where the birds could take it for their nests. The Bewick’s wren appropriated an impressive amount at the Fall equinox: as Glenn Stewart of SCPBRG explains, bird behaviors at that time often somewhat mimic those of the Spring equinox, when the number of daylight hours vs dark is again equal.

So. There was a little dog fur left, and I had tufts of it set out among my amaryllis pots.

I looked up today to see what looked like a chickadee with a very furry blonde beard. She was diving into the fluff again and again, trying to get as much as her beak could hold.

And then she was off.

I went and got my hairbrush and pulled the last two days’ hair out of it; I was curious to see if I might be as acceptable as the dog. I went back to the patio, gathered up all the dog fluff in one amaryllis pot and put the hair with it.

More ! All in one place! Cool! She came back and her bill dove into it again and again, each time looking up and around to be safe in her surroundings: down, quickly up and left, right, down, peck, quickly up, left, right.

It took her a minute or two to be satisfied with her haul. She took to the air.

She seemed to have felted the dog fur into my long curled hairs with all those bobbings up and down: she flew in an uncertain wobble, as if the wind against her treasure was almost too much.

That little chickadee had a streamer of blond fur three chickadees wide and three chickadees long flowing proudly along behind her, like a small plane with a particularly large banner for the cheering crowd below.

*Ping*

I heard the incoming email and put my knitting down to come to the computer, where there is a better view out the window, to see who’d written; breaks to rest the hands are always a good thing.

Which is the only reason I saw.

In mid-reply, typing away, something made me look to the left just in time. By size I’m guessing it was the male.

There is the translucent awning with the birdfeeder hanging from the wooden beams it rests on. We have seen a hawk from time to time doing a steep V-dive, appearing suddenly from above and then veering straight back up again for the chase as everybody panics. (And if it hears a window strike, I get treated to a super close-up.)

Today was a first: I saw the Cooper’s just as it came in from a low flight, trying to stay out of view, and pulling straight up at the last second to catch I think a dove on top of that awning. The doves like to walk all around up there and the smaller birds never seem to.

I went looking for a picture to describe it, and this one is the closest–only, picture the bird entirely upright mid-air and facing you. At fifteen feet away.

Last week I saw one way to the left, carefully half-hidden by a tree trunk and perched on the fence. I was curious to know if she was stalking an oblivious finch on the other side of the smaller feeder to my far right. Knowing how fast they move, I consciously blinked left then back to the right as fast as I could make my eyes go–and in that real time, she lifted her wings, spread her tail wide and was halfway across my backyard. They are that fast.

Now if I could only teach them to knit. You’d need rope to survive those claws… We could have a hammock fence to fence in a blink.

It’s peregrine falcon season.

City Hall in San Jose has the perfect set-up: a nestbox 18 stories off the ground with fresh-every-year gravel in it to smoosh around to support the eggs, a not-too-big enclosed space for the kids to run around in and explore, ledges to keep them from falling and later to entice them to hop up to to see the whole wide world below but with space and safety for hopping back down again when they’re not quite ready to fledge yet.

And all the pigeons you could ask for below.

Add in our temperate climate to sweeten the deal, and it shows how the peregrine population has come back from their near-extinction that there is now a tussle every year for that perfect piece of real estate. Which Clara claimed when the building was brand new in 2005.

And she’s still there.

A few days ago, another pair showed up and clearly wanted that spot. Clara and EC went into high alert and drove them off. There were three eggs with a fourth expected, and EC was bringing Clara food and keeping a wary watch along with her.

Until he wasn’t. Saturday morning was the last report of his bringing her prey. The intruding pair had not stayed gone.

No sign of him.

And then a fight was seen, talons locked and raptors tumbling in a  potentially-deadly spiral towards the Fourth Street garage today while the watchers standing there held their breath.

It was reported that of the new pair, the female was a yearling: peregrines have such an intense need to find their life’s mate and home that the new male had been willing to wait a year. I believe Clara’s first mate did the same.

EC was gone. The new male, having been accepted now by the fertile Clara as the strongest and fittest at the loss of her mate, fought off in that spiral the female who was a threat to her. Defeated, the young one rose and took a dive at Clara but did not strike.

Clara and the new male have made the territorial display of mating. City Hall is his. He is bringing her prey now. He has looked in the nestbox at the eggs, and she allowed it: they too are his responsibility now, and he will help raise them well.

News from Sam (med denied by insurance) that made us catch our breath, and then news from Sam again today (insurance caved after all) that helped us exhale. It’s been an intense week.

Look! It was huge and it was in a tree across the fence, letting me see it only briefly but for the Cheshire-cat-smile of a tail still in view that moved again and again for balance as it ate its breakfast.

Hours later, there was a flash of feathers at eye level: it took me a moment to be sure. The side view is so different. They glide so fast.

And then in the evening, before I left for Purlescence, I looked up: and there she was yet again. The female Cooper’s, antsy at my noticing unlike her mate, taking off from the handle of the lawnmower that my little wrens were no doubt cowering under. Spreading those big wings and long striped tail wide, and again in an instant she was gone.

Breathtaking. So close. I’d needed that.

And then I headed for knitting group.

At Stitches last weekend, at Purlescence’s booth, there was a sample little boy’s sweater on display (middle one at bottom in link) in front of the yarn it had been made in, a microfiber blend that was very soft and very practical for that size of person. I admired it, thought I’d come back to it, never did, but filed it away for future reference: I knew I really ought to buy that and make that for Parker. I do love my wools, but still, it would be nice to make a handknit that I could be sure my son and daughter-in-law wouldn’t ever have to worry about wrecking. And it definitely met my softness standards.

I was quite surprised as I walked in the door tonight:  someone handed me a ticket with a number. Somehow the shop was really crowded. And there were the Cascade folks I’d met at Stitches!

Turns out the Cascade people were having a raffle. The numbers being called out corresponded to specific patterns and the yarns to go with: they would hand the winner (there were quite a few) a zippered logo’d plastic tote with some random pattern inside, and then they’d take you over to where there were sample books with snips of every color of the matching yarns. You would choose a color, they would take your name, and then they would be sending it to the shop for you to pick up later.

You guessed it.

No, really, you guessed it. I hadn’t even known that was a Cascade pattern. How on earth, and I don’t know either, but you guessed it: they called my number, and knowing nothing of any of that, they handed me a tote with a pattern to that very same little boy’s sweater in it.

The royal blue Cherub Aran yarn is on its way.

I’d better finish up my current project fast to be ready to go.

My son John was due Feb. 29th. He chose to wait a week so his sister could have her surgery she needed. Happy due-iversary, John!

And today is the 15th anniversary of my parents’ engagement–although, yes, Dad did the asking. Happy engage-iversary, Mom and Dad!

And what I did on their date…

Squirrels don’t learn by fear or they could never sustain themselves. But they just didn’t like that flashy flying box under the feeder. It was just me and the birds since setting it up.

Unable to stand being left out any longer, this morning a black squirrel decided at last to head for the patio to graze underneath it. If it’s safe enough for a chickadee…

But. As soon as he took the first few happy bouncy steps off that tree, Alpha, the black one with reddish highlights who fought off that big gray fox squirrel a few months ago and claimed his dominion over my yard, appeared suddenly from the base of another tree and took after him at a flat-out screaming run, out for blood. They zigged this way. They zagged that way. FAST!

And out of sight and gone.

That’s when I knew the porch was still under their surveillance. Alpha came by a little later for sustenance after that marathon, and a few nuts were tossed his way; I figure, if the place is his (add a little more motivation), he’ll keep the numbers down.

What intrigued me is that two weeks ago he couldn’t follow a line of sight of a tidbit flying past his nose; now he can. Not only that, but he’s figured out that what my finger way over here inside is doing is being his personal food GPS, and he can turn to follow as it turns.

I tested him. He was  happy to be tested. A walnut this time! He wasn’t perfect, but he was far from the hopeless nut case he was before.

Object constancy happens for his species at maturity. Happy Spring.

A big gray came by in the afternoon and made it clear that, okay, he wasn’t going near that weird swingy thing up there but that’s fine, he’d picked up a taste for the expensive peanut-and-suet I like to set out for the wrens. And they’re ground birds. It was right there waiting for him near the door.

Not! I was surprised; the squirrels all used to turn up their noses at it.

He got good at gauging how long it took me to pump the squirter, open the door and then raise the thing and actually start to squirt, how long he could ignore me before he had to make a dash for it.

That’s too aggressive-urban-squirrel for my taste. This would not do.

I got it. I took an old keyboard and leaned it against the wooden box there. Ran the cord to inside. Shut the door. Waited.

Here he swaggered. Definitely some fox-type in him, even if his ears are a bit big for it. He gradually worked his way towards that suet as if I wouldn’t notice because, you know, he was being all subtle about it, and the strangeness of that new object hadn’t kept him away long at all. But carefully, before he got close enough that it could possibly hurt him–

–I yanked his chain.

And as that electric cord flipped up and the keyboard came crashing noisily down on the concrete, you never saw any animal run like that one ran.

He did not come back.

But then, there’s a difference between fear and a dead-certain knowledge of a monster lurking waiting to pounce.

Maybe.

The story popped up today on the local feed that a burglary trio had just been arrested with the tools of their trade, hopefully accounting for the rash of daylight break-ins last week.

Which had given me extra cause for concern. That does help me feel a little better about yesterday’s guy.

Meantime.

You know how little kids like the box better than the toy? My husband saved a nifty little one from Christmas (thanks, Sam!) that a descendant of a Rubik’s cube had come in, and the best way I could describe it is that it looked like the upper part of a jazzed-up lighthouse, complete with a mirror on one of the sides and opening at the opposite. (Actually, that box in the link is the right-looking box, but Richard glancing at my screen mentions that his was a more complicated toy and, checking, Amazon doesn’t have it.)

Whichever. It is colorful and quite light. So. Yesterday (before All That) I got the bright idea to hang it by laceweight from the bottom of the birdfeeder: there would not be enough weight to set off the closing mechanism.

It took awhile for the birds to get used to it. It would be still, and they would fly tentatively in. Add momentum from lots of birds coming in for a landing and the thing would start swinging wildly below and they would all dash away.

Today they were less skittish about it. A junco even took a turn up there.

What I was hoping to do was to interrupt the squirrels’ path in their leap to the feeder.

What I hadn’t anticipated was the lack of squirrels. Not in the yard, much less on the patio. It felt oddly empty with no squirrels playing flip-flops with their tails or watching me to see what they could get away with. A gray one appeared on the fence and considered a moment but dove down towards the neighbors’ garden.

Today, a black one did finally graze a bit below the feeder when he got hungry enough, but he wasn’t having anything to do with the things he used to leap from. Wouldn’t even look up.

Like the rained-on-and-gone Margaret Thatcher cover, only with flashing light and sudden movements.

I think I’m on to something here.

The first on-camera red peregrine falcon egg of the season arrived in San Francisco yesterday, to much celebration and hope.  San Jose’s Clara and EC have been getting their nestbox ready, scooping out depressions in the gravel just so, and EC has been bringing prey to his mate.

But nope, no synchronized laying this year between the two cities. (They did last year.)

I’ve been watching the male house finches’ feathers growing in a deeper and brighter red, changing quickly from the drab of winter to the intensity of courtship.

A goldfinch facing me today caught the sunlight just so across its chest: vivid yellow, with a slightly green sheen to it.

A woodpecker, I think a Hairy, has been tapping the tree outside my window, testing, testing, one two three days now. The more noise he can make the better his chances.

The little Bewick’s wrens are showing up in pairs frequently now and sharing the peanut-suet mix together as they skitter and flit by flick of tail. One is slightly rounder of belly and seems to occasionally get lost in a daydream, as expectant mothers do.  I dare not touch the old lawnmower they seem to have claimed for their coming chicks, darting underneath it: they are gone from so much of their part of the Earth now, but we have them here.

And the season begins anew.

We told Sam we would check our (silenced) phones if she texted us during church; we wanted to know how her day was going.

And so while our friend Russ was on the stand making an impassioned plea for people to participate in a Red Cross blood drive the church was going to be sponsoring in Menlo Park, that message came in, driving home Russ’s point unbeknownst to him.

Seriously down on those platelets. More so. Trying one more thing before transfusing.  There are risks–but if she has to, a profound thank you for each person who makes it possible, and likewise to all who have added their prayers with ours.

It’s been a stressful time around here.

Our doorbell rang. It was a friend with a tiny miniature rose plant and a few homemade chocolate chip cookies, just because. Happy Valentine’s!

She had no idea. She had no idea how much it meant to me. I am determined to grow that three-inch Parade rose into something that blooms in my garden for decades in grateful remembrance of that act of unexpected kindness.

And as the sky started to dim in the late afternoon I suddenly had a feeling of being watched. Curious. I glanced up.

And just outside was the male Cooper’s hawk, perched on the chairback under the birdfeeder, people watching. My heart went out to him in thanks; somehow, when life gets really hard, one of them always seems to show up.

And there he was.  Beautiful red chest, bluegray/white racing stripes on his head, craning his neck to show a gray stripe at the bottom of it too.  He bobbed a bit, looking around just in case any dinner might happen to stumble on the scene, but mostly he was simply watching me.

We took each other in.

He opened his beak and again and said something I wished I could hear.

I thanked God for sending him to me; and with that, he raised his wings, turning, and flew in the one direction where I would be able to follow his path between the trees across our yard and on past the neighbor’s as he went–gone in a wingbeat, so fast!

I feel now like I can handle anything again.

Angora and merino! says my hubby.  You can tell he’s married to a spinner and knitter.

Okay, granted, in some parts of the video the farmer is walking around with a bucket of feed, but in most of it, the little guy’s doing a good job of it by himself: a bunny that watched the sheepdog and figured out he could do this too–and then does. (Click on one of the highlighted areas.) How cool is that?

The knitting: today I frogged some, knitted some, frogged some, knitted some more, and at last blocked my new shawl and then made good headway on the next.

Meantime, as for my own critters, I had an overripe apple and cut it in half to see what the wildlife would do with it. No thank you on the waxy exterior; okay, makes sense. The white-capped sparrows took polite turns happily pecking the center one by one, but a few hours later the thing was disappearing up a tree.

Well, that’s no surprise; the ones the squirrels could steal off my Fuji and Golden Delicious trees are long gone. (I planted that Fuji 17 years ago and so far have gotten one. single. apple. One. And only because I picked it too early.)

What later was a surprise was half an apple suddenly plummeting (shouldn’t that be appple-eting?) down from the treetop. Boom. Bounce. Not what you want hitting your head. Glad I was getting a clue from inside rather than outside, and I’ve caved: I will stick to nibble-size pieces from here on out.

Oh look! I hadn’t seen them in awhile, and there one was! There was the unwelcome sound of saws two weeks ago and the limb their nest was on was not there anymore when I went out to look. There is now, though, a new not-as-big (-yet?) nest further up on what’s left of that tall but not overly healthy tree next door.

I knew raptors don’t just give up their territory, but I’ve been hoping it all worked out okay: I’d been wishing I could see one around, just t0 finally feel better about it all–

–and there you go.

I had just walked into the room and sat down and glanced out the window when there, perched just above the other neighbors’ side of the fence, was a beautiful adult Cooper’s hawk. At last! The female, it seemed to me by size and shape. Breathtaking.

She took note of me taking note of her for a goodly minute.

And then she started doing the oddest thing. Now, raptors especially tend to bob their heads before taking flight as a way of measuring the distance with the different parts of their eyes. This one was bobbing its head.

But she was going up and down and side to side rather differently from anything I’d seen before, like she was rocking out to the bird music on her I-clawed. I wondered if she was watching prey in both yards?

Then suddenly she really shook her head, hard! Her shoulders too, though her wings stayed folded in–and on this bright dry sunshiny day, a sudden impressively massive spray of water went flying from her head.

Where did THAT come from?!

Oh wait. I bet you I can guess…

(That was just her warm-up act. Next thing you know, she’ll be singing koi-oke at the Grand Old Osprey.)

I wanted to make major progress today, and found myself reaching for a green sweater this morning before I even made the connection.

It is always easier to get to work on knitting that doesn’t clash with your clothes, and better yet, when the work in your hands will look fabulous with what you’ve got on (even when it’s for somebody else), it’s hard to put it down. A dozen more grams and it’s done.

Oh, and the squirrels and that bag? They quit even sniffing at it. They ignored the nuts in it. Even after I put peanut butter in it. Too scary.

Wow, how do I get them to react to my birdfeeders that way?

I finally took the bag out of the tall flowerpot this morning and put it down across the yard, the mouth open towards where I could see from inside.

It took awhile–and then the bag was suddenly doing a vigorous funky chicken.  A gray was trying the flower pot tactic: if I push this around there must be nuts I can get at underneath. He nudged it. He charged it nose first. He tried to wrestle it out of the way. No dice. He left in disgust.

Hours more and the alpha squirrel approached the mouth of it. (He’s black with a touch of white below his eye, he’s easy to spot.) He stopped halfway across the yard and did an anxious paw up, nose straining forward, tail straining backwards then protectively over him, then he shifted to the other foot and did a little dance.

It didn’t bite him.

A little closer. A little more trepidation. Finally he stepped into the wet cold bag and then freaked as the paper gave way under him and the top of it came down at his head. (The gray had left the thing angled upwards.)

But having gone in once nothing was going to stop him now. None of the others ever did dare come in. Alpha ate at his leisure, then came back for more later when he got hungry again, dashing out to safety the moment the almond was claimed, not staying in there one squirrel breath longer than necessary each time.

Moms rule. I got a squirrel to take just one at a time.