giggle pop

As some of you may recall a while back I had a bit of a battle with a little squirrel in my yard that kept getting into a bird feeder. Well here is an update on the little brat. First off I named him Ronnie. Because like his namesake, he is annoying, ballsy, way too full of himself, and unfortunately good at what he does. Though, unlike Human-Ronnie, he is not doing step-overs, scoring goals, taking off his shirt, rolling on the ground, and banging prostitutes-- Squirrel-Ronnie is master at breaking into the damn bird feeder.

The other day I see him in the bird feeder so I decide to scare him away. I go outside he jumps out and sits on the ground and looks at me. Not one to back down to a challenge I throw my shoe at him. Squirrel-Ronnie dodges it skillfully and proceeds to chirp at me. Afraid of the ballsy little thing, and my history of being attacked by wildlife, I run back in the house. I glare out the window, now it is really on.

The next day I decide this is going to end once and for all. I grab a roll of duct tape and I duct tape the hell out of that bird feeder. The birds can still get in but there is no way Squirrel-Ronnie can get in, right? WRONG! For a few days I watch him try with futile efforts to get into the feeder, and laugh as he fails. But then what do you know, I come home from work and the cover (still covered in duct tape) is laying on the ground and Squirrel-Ronnie is up in the tree chirping at me, mocking me.

I am not sure what my next move will be, but this war is far from over.

Here is an old pic of Squirrel-Ronnie in the feeder.

As many of you know I live in the middle of frickin nowhere, and many of you also may know that one of my favorite activities is distance running. Living in the country has its down sides, but one major upside is endless deserted roads to run forever and ever on. While the road I live on has “highway” in the name, it is a damn road, and I run on it a lot. While running on my road I see lots of interesting things and I figured I would share a few of them with you.

Dashing Deer—this area is overrun with them, they are everywhere. I like them in my yard, at a distance, but not when I am out alone on the road. The other day two ran right in front of me, and when I say right in front of me I mean I could have reached out and touched them. If they ran out into the road about thirty seconds later I would have been crushed by a herd of deer, which would not be a surprising death for me. Another fun fact about me—I often get attacked by animals. To name a few instances…when I was younger a pig chewed on me, I got stalked and attacked by a baby ram at a petting zoo, and then there was that horse at Mardi Gras.

Creepy Corner—Recently I started getting more motivated and finally decided to run up the big hill at the end of the road and see what was up around the bend. Well I discovered that the bend is pretty damn creepy. The nice paved road turns to dirt, which is nice on the knees for running so I kept going. I discovered a “farm.” Well it looks like a farm, but all they seem to be growing on the farm is three or four cows and a crap load of rusty cars. This should have been m first signal to turn around, but running through creepy places at dusk is just too much fun so I kept going. Next up on creepy corner is a little shack/house that paint and everything else is falling off of. I am about 76% sure there are some lampshades in there made out of people.

Fernando the Fox—There is a spot on the road I hit in the middle of my run (usually around 6:30pm if you want to stalk me) and in that spot there is almost always a fox sitting there. I named him Fernando. Just so you know it is after Fernando Gago NOT Fernando Torres. Nothing too exciting about Fernando the Fox other than he is super duper cute and has not attacked me yet. It is not everyday you see a fox so I think he is pretty cool.

Cobra Kai—Yesterday morning I was dragging my fat lazy dog on a walk and I saw someone walking in the distance. I slowly got closer and realized this person was dressed in all white, and as I got even closer I realized it was a man. I thought it was odd to see a man dressed in all white, well in this area it is. While living in New Orleans I am sure I saw a few in all white linen or white suits. Anyways as he got closer I realized he was in a full karate outfit. Let me reiterate I live on a back country road, the closest thing that is not a bar is about ten miles away. I have no idea where he was going or why he was dressed like that. I was tempted to yell out “how’s it hanging Cobra Kai?” but I was worried he may roundhouse kick me in the face.

The other direction—I have only ran one direction from my house, some day I will venture the other direction. I have driven that way a bit and know the road forks. One fork leads to a place called “big timber” I have no idea what it is, but it has a fancy brown sign, so must be cool. I hope it is a giant tree. The other fork goes to the bar. Both pretty awesome destinations.

Apparently there is more than one breed of squirrel, I guess I knew some looked different than others, but I am told some are worse than others. I once saw a flying squirrel, now that was pretty cool. Anyways, there is a cute breed of squirrels who live in my yard, people say they are bad because they chew on houses or something. I always thought they were misunderstood with adorable little ears…until one made things personal. Anyone who knows me, knows I often have battles with animals and/or inanimate objects, and now I have been entirely outsmarted by a squirrel.

We have a few different bird feeders in the yard, and bird feeders can be pretty high tech, especially when you have many who want to eat the bird feed that are not birds i.e. bears, deer, squirrels. One of our bird feeders is especially tricky and I have never figured out how to open it. This bird house/feeder is designed to be super-duper anti-squirrel. It is on top of a long slipper pole, has a slippery roof, and the part you eat out of closes if something heavier than a bird on it. This feeder/house is also anti-giggle pop because it has some weird latch thing to open it that I cannot figure out how to open. Somehow one of the squirrels managed to climb onto the house/feeder, unlatch it and get inside. Now it sits in there eating the bird seed and every once in a while popping his head up and mocking me. I still cannot figure out how he gets in there and I still cannot figure out how to get in there myself.

The crafty squirrel at work...