There are three birdbaths in the back yard, and we hadn’t seen much action at any of them this summer. That changed Tuesday afternoon, when the big one with the Water Wiggler suddenly became the place to be. It was robin versus starling out there. Also, starling versus starling and, apparently, starling versus birdbath. The starlings did their best to splash the water out with mighty wingbeats, less like they were bathing than like they were trying to assert dominion. They put on quite a show, a raucous ruckus.
More action is taking place under the hellebores. A red squirrel is adding decorative touches to the garden with spruce cones. I saw it place the first cone at the base of a hellebore, and it added many more. The plants had from zero to eight cones each, this week, when the squirrel made its first withdrawal. It selected a cone and ate it like corn on the cob, chewing up the nuts inside and letting the woody bits fall where they might. The hellebores are just a cone cupboard.
Red squirrels perch on our deck to eat cones this way all the time. It creates a constant mess, which is bothersome. But more irksome is the way the little guys harvest the cones. They skedaddle up the spruces and gnaw off cone after cone, each of which hits our roof, rolls to the edge, and lands on the deck. They generally choose early morning to do it, so we wake to thud, roll, roll, roll, thud! Thud, roll, roll, roll, thud!
The morning after a big rain this week, cones were coming down thick and fast at breakfast time. They fell in rapid succession and over a large area, including well past the deck. How could one squirrel, even a lickety-split red squirrel, cover that much territory with that kind of speed? Was more than one of them working? My husband went outside to have a look. While he was out there, I decided my best theory was that the cones were so heavy after that rain that they were coming down all by themselves, unaided by squirrels. My husband had no data one way or the other when he hustled back inside: he’d been too busy dodging cone-bombs to see why they were coming down.
And, speaking of activity on high, we had hours and hours of electrical storms Wednesday, losing power in the afternoon. We tootled out to Zukey Lake for dinner, and when we got close to home at dusk, we looked at people’s houses for lights. Power on North Territorial. Good on Sutton. Good on Nixon and Argonne. “Won’t it be funny,” my husband asked, “if the power’s only out on our court?” And he was right. It was just us.
It’s been a couple days now, and despite DTE’s diligent efforts, there’s no power yet. Yesterday, my husband and I went to Zingerman’s Bakehouse for something wonderful for breakfast, only to be told that our favorite sweets were gone because so many others without power had been there before us. We picked up coffee and a morsel from Tim Horton’s instead and parked at the airport while we ate. We used to do that when our family was young—stop for cones at the Dairy Queen and park at the airport to watch touch-and-goes while we ate. So it was nostalgic to sit there yesterday, watching the planes. No touch-and-goes this time, just plane after little plane taking off, on its way to somewhere.
Power outages don’t usually throw us for a loop, but the dog had a hard night Wednesday night. Thus, we had a hard night, too. Electrical storms came one after the next after the next, and our dog is afraid of thunder. He sat on the floor near his bed, shaking and panting, for as long as he could stand it, then leapt onto our bed for protection, barging up between us, frantic. It took ages to settle him, but finally he lay down–on top of my arm and with his back plastered against me. When I woke Thursday morning, the only thing between my head and the nightstand was my other arm—the dog had stretched out sideways and–unintentionally, I hope—done his best to push me out of bed.
So it’s been a bit of a ruckus around here lately, what with starlings, cone-bombs, neighbors’ generators, and thunder. But the sun is out now. The dog is his usual cheerful self. And the power will, no doubt, be restored soon.
13 August 2021