Live from Austin!

We just filled 7× 110 liter paper sacks with fallen leaves from the back yard. We still have plenty of leaves, but we ran out of sacks.

On Saturday it rained. I’m not sure if it was that or SXSW, but for whatever reason the squirrels all came out to play. We had all 5 of the regulars feeding at once. Chasing and comical feeding antics ensued.

The high point was when one squirrel was sitting on the squirrel-a-whirl, looking over the hub and down at the corn below. Another squirrel rushed up from behind and gave him a shove, and suddenly he was a flying squirrel.

Blacktip seems to have ceded his position of Alpha Squirrel to Tiny, our squirrel ninja whose leaps of over a meter put the others to shame. Tiny is feared by all the other squirrels—except Frida, who is apparently too psycho to give in.

The squirrels also fought off a blue jay and some grackles. It was like an urban wildlife documentary out there.

No squirrelfest photos, I’m afraid. I need a telephoto lens, but that’ll have to wait until I can sell the film SLR.

So, back yards with trees have pluses as well as minuses.

[P.S.: Cool squirrel T-shirt reprinted at Threadless, and on sale.]

Spring is here, and the garden is bursting with new life. Oozing, wriggling and crawling with new life. We can broadly divide the contents of the garden into the following categories:

• Neoptera terreorus, or things which I am scared of. This category includes anything with more than 4 legs that is over 1cm in its largest dimension.

• Eukaryota mortis nausicam, or things which I am revolted by. This category includes piles of dead leaves, dead and rotting things, dessicated insects, and so on.

• Plantae gravatatem mortifera, or things which I am violently allergic to. This category apparently includes most other green things.

Nevertheless, the back garden was starting to look a hell of a mess, and something had to be done. What’s more, the front and back porches were covered in disgusting yellow tree jizz. Then, when I went out back to assess the situation, I found a paper wasp was building a nest so she could settle down and raise a few hundred children in the corner of our back porch.

Dead plant stems, caterpillars and wood are all plentiful around our back porch, so I could see why she was attracted to the neighborhood, but beneficial or not she was going to have to go.

First, though, I had to sweep the pollen off the decks and sweep the path. Clouds of dust were raised, and I think my sinuses were so outraged by my foolhardiness that they went into some sort of shock, as I felt OK. Next, I got the hose out and rinsed off the back deck. The wasp was easily rinsed away, but the nest required some brisk work with the yard brush.

By that point I was sweating, and I felt as though there were insects crawling all over my body. I came back indoors and took a shower. By then, my nose had worked out what was up it, and not even Zyrtec could alleviate the misery.

There’s no doubt about it, I am to gardening what Stephen Hawking is to synchronized swimming. I just need to accept that, and pay someone to sort the rest out.