Live from Austin!

The first one shown is Blacktip, who we haven’t seen in months. Maybe this time he’s gone for good. He never did learn to leap at the corn.

Things squirrels eat:

• Corn.
• Nuts.
• More corn.
• Sunflower seeds.
• Peanuts in their shells.
• Pecans.
• Tomatoes.
• Even more corn.
• Strawberries.

Things squirrels will not eat:

• Organic peanut butter.
• Corn Tortillas^†.
• Guacamole.
• Marshmallows.
• Celery.
• Carrots.

^†However, they will carry them away to use as nesting material.

We’ve had our first sighting of new young squirrels. They have been stumbling around in the trees and bushes and practicing jumping, still learning how to be a squirrel.

So, we finally found a builder who was interested in fixing up our decks. He sent waterproof deck coating samples, returned telephone calls, quoted a price, all the things I was naïvely expecting builders to do when I started the quest.

This morning he turned up with 3 friends at 7am to start work. I guess in Texas you have to get the work done early, before the temperature gets too high.

So it was that I came to be awake early enough to see a baby squirrel, the first youngster to visit us. He was exploring next door’s fig tree, learning how to not fall off branches. Meanwhile, a couple of adult squirrels were moving from fig to fig, testing each one to see if it was ripe.

After a while the youngster moved onto the front lawn to frolic. He rolled in the grass, ran around in circles, and practiced leaping from ground to telegraph pole and back. He also tried some gratuitous hole-digging; clearly somewhere in his genetic code is the knowledge that squirrels dig. When he masters food-gathering, he should be ready to learn burying.

If you didn’t see them, check the pictures of our trip to the UT campus for some Extreme Squirrel Feeding.

A while back I read that squirrels need fresh water, and summer was approaching, so we got a water bottle from the pet store and fitted it to the tree. I wasn’t sure they’d take to it, but yesterday evening Buster dropped by for a long drink.

We’ve also had a visit from a mother squirrel who was obviously taking a break from nursing. Unfortunately, Blacktip turned up and stared at her, and she shot up the fence and vanished.

We had a pretty good crop of corn this year, thanks to our furry four-legged gardeners. Fortunately, it pulls up pretty easily.

You know that infamous squirrel picture found all over the Internet? It wasn’t modified with Photoshop, as I had assumed. It’s a genuine stock photo available from Corbis.

We got some things called “Squirrel Logs“. They’re supposed to last as long as 12-24 ears of corn. Given the rate at which our half dozen fluffy friends go through corn, that seemed like a convenient idea.

I tried hanging one from the bungee. No deal, it seemed that they would definitely last 12x as long as corn, because the squirrels wouldn’t touch ‘em. They went straight for the corn on the squirrel-a-whirl instead, and even after eating it they continued to climb out on the whirl and sniff the corn husks rather than eat the log.

I wondered if it might just be too much work for them to knaw at the log while bouncing up and down on a spring, so I decided I needed to rig up a makeshift holder for the log—something that would stop Blacktip from trying to drag the entire thing away. I also realized they’d be more likely to sit around and chow if the log was above ground level, out of the reach of the neighbor’s cat.

I picked a sturdy chunk of wood out of the trash near a local building site, and drilled two holes in it about 1cm apart. I threaded some steel cable through one hole, through the squirrel log, through a metal hex nut, back down through the log, and then through the other hole in the wood. I twist-tied the cable underneath the wood and duct taped it out of harm’s way. Then, I positioned the wood platform over the metal fence, and attached one end to a post of the wooden fence behind the metal fence, with a small right-angle bracket. (I’m not sure why we have two fences.)

The result allows the squirrels to climb on via the fences, and sit and gnaw at the log in comfort. They can grab it and move it around, but can’t actually drag it away.

We haven’t seen Blacktip in a couple of weeks. I’m wondering if something has happened to him. I’ll put corn out all weekend, and if he doesn’t show, I think it’ll be time to put the feed box back. Frida is still a regular visitor, and we’ve also seen a new smallish squirrel with a thick tail, who had trouble working out the whole bungee thing.

Update: Squirrels seen humping on 2005-10-13. Additional squirrels likely. FYI gestation period around 44 days, followed by 2-3 months of weaning.

Blacktip is the Alpha Squirrel. His tail is rough in shape at the end, as if he has lost part of it, and black at the tip. His preferred feeding technique is to climb the slippery pole the squirrel bungee is suspended from, lean out, grab the bungie cable with his front paws, reel in the corncob, and try to chew off some corn before his back paws lose grip. He doesn’t like the feed box much; he doesn’t like leaning into it, and doesn’t like climbing in all the way, so he ends up a squirrel sandwich between the box and the lid.

Longtail was the first squirrel to work out the feed box. He usually climbs all the way in, picks up some food, then sticks out his head to chew, watching for approaching enemies from inside the box. His bungee technique is to jump very slightly, grab the bottom of the corncob, and then climb paw-over-paw until he’s dangling in the air and gently bobbing. He’ll then grab some corn, drop to the ground, and eat it there. He also likes sunbathing on tree branches.

The Twins are almost impossible to tell apart. They’re mostly seen chasing each other from tree to tree. At least one of them feeds at the box by leaning all the way in, leaving his butt sticking out. One time Twin #1 was feeding, and Twin #2 approached and shoved the lid down on him with a paw. A major chase ensued.

Tiny is a new arrival, first seen today. He’s smaller than all the others, but fiesty—as I replaced the corncob, he sat on the tree a meter away and growled at me. I’m guessing he’s a squirrel teenager acting out, or maybe he’s just angry because he hasn’t worked out how to open the box yet. He’s also the squirrel seen humping another squirrel.

We now have at least 4 different squirrels visiting us on a regular basis. I know this because I’ve seen all 4 in the garden at once. We put up a squirrel bungee with a corn cob on the end, and often one aboreal rodent will chow at the feed box while another gets some exercise. They occasionally chase each other, but they don’t seem to be too territorial yet; maybe later in the year?

The downside of being the #1 brunch destination for Bouldin Creek squirrels is that between them, the critters can easily go through an entire ear of corn in one day.

We’ve also got more lizards. We found two just outside the back door one night. They were pinkish-white and sitting on white paint, but were otherwise very similar to the brown lizard spotted on the wood floor, so I’m guessing that they are color-changing lizards of some kind.

Finally, we’ve had a couple of sightings of the white peacock which lives with the regular peacocks at the restaurant up the street. It’s strange—it’s like a normal peacock that god built from an Airfix model kit but couldn’t be bothered to paint.

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.

It may be cold outside, but the squirrels and dope smokers are starting to venture into the Linear Park once more, so spring is clearly on the way. Yes, once more the night air carries the delicate aroma of both kinds of skunk.

I passed a group of kids doing the “loser shuffle”—that hunched walk teenagers do when it’s 10am on a weekday and they somehow haven’t made it to school yet—and sure enough they were smoking. Cause or effect? I’m still not sure, but I suspect it’s not a habit to pick up before graduation.