I don’t like this squirrel’s attitude. After investing money is a plastic hawk, it still wasn’t enough to scare off this mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, apple-stealing squirrel. I placed the hawk there couple of weeks ago and apparently, it’s just an inconvenience. Now instead of running along the stone wall, the furry rodents have to detour around the bird and scale down the side to get to my apples.

Now I think he’s mocking me. What he doesn’t know is that last Sunday, four coyotes walked by the same spot. The hawk may be fake but those coyotes are real. And hungry. Instead of  sitting there watching the hawk’s back, you’d better watch your own. I saw a bobcat around too. “Here, kittty, kitty, kitty……”

Who needs fireworks when they have this in their backyard? I was so lucky to get this shot! I saw the mom and baby walk by and went out with my camera (like I always do when anything moves back there) and I started taking pictures. Then the baby saw me and took off but the mom stayed, probably because she’s more used to seeing me. I was about to go back in the house, assuming the mom would follow the baby but then I saw the baby walking back to the mom. I still didn’t know what was coming. I was just prepared to take some photos of them together.

And then THIS happened! Wow! It was lunch time, baby! I was so excited to be a spectator at this beautiful event, I could hardly hold the camera still. What a joy that they came to our house today. Tomorrow’s 4th of July fireworks will never compare.

Thanks to the mangy, rat-faced, no-good, low-life, beady-eyed, scum-sucking, apple-stealing squirrel, I was forced to cover my entire apple tree with netting if I ever hoped to make my apple pie bars with my own apples. The tree is about six feet tall and we covered it 2 weeks ago. It’s been keeping the rodents and the birds away but yesterday, I kept hearing a noise inside the netting that sounded like a bee. No problem. But the sound became louder and it couldn’t be a bee, especially at dusk. Denis and I went to look and it was a hummingbird!

He must have flown through a small opening and now was trying desperately to get out. He would fly wildly around (there isn’t much room inside with all the leaves and branches), grab onto the net to rest, and then fly again. The opening must have been near the bottom but he kept trying to get out at the top or sides. At one point, he was able to stick his face out at the top and I thought he’d be small enough to poke through, but couldn’t.

So Denis and I went to work. I cut a big opening in the netting at the side where there weren’t as many leaves and Denis tried to guide him to the opening, but he wouldn’t come over. It was starting to get dark and we had to try something else. By now the scared little bird saw the top as his only escape. So Denis went and got a ladder to reach the top of the tree and cut a hole in the top.

We were prepared to take down all the netting if we had to but as soon as Denis stepped away, the bird found the opening and flew out… gone in a split second, never stopping to say “thank you.” No high five. No fly by. Oh well. It felt good to do the right thing but they don’t appreciate us. Maybe it’s time for their favorite feeder to get a visit… from my plastic snake. Then I can pretend to wrestle the snake away as it tries to choke me, and I finally subdue the scary snake and they get their feeder back. Maybe then we’ll get a “thank you.”

We fill the hummingbird feeders constantly and don’t give it much thought. We go out, take the feeder off the hook, bring it in, wash and fill it with fresh sugar water and put it back. And we’re usually looking down on the ground because it’s rattlesnake season, not to step on a snake. But we never expected this….

OMG!! We didn’t know what to do. Leave it there? Knock it down? Try to pick it up with a stick? I posted this photo on facebook and someone thought it was two snakes. It wasn’t two snakes – it was one four-foot-long snake! Be it wasn’t a rattlesnake so we decided it was safe to watch him for a while and he didn’t seem annoyed with all the attention. He wasn’t after the sugar water – he was just hanging out. When I say “hanging out” I mean that literally. After a few minutes he started weaving in and out of the loops on the feeder.

Even though we enjoyed the show, our hummingbirds, on the other hand, were not happy. You have to understand they are spoiled, unappreciative little flying brats who take us and their free food for granted. Sometimes they scare us more than the snakes because they zoom at our heads going 40 miles per hour. I think they get a kick out of watching us duck so it did my heart good to see them inconvenienced by a snake.

The birds keeps swooping towards the feeder only to be  stopped midair in their tracks every time. I think this bird was saying, “Whoa! Maybe I’ll come back later – when those snakes are gone!”