RAIN, TULIPS, AND VANDALIZING SQUIRRELS

It is cool. damp, overcast, and raining lightly, with more and heavier rain predicted for this afternoon, as well as tonight, through the weekend, and at least the first couple of days next week. Some of it, they warn, will be quite heavy. Not the news a riverbank dweller likes to hear—especially since it rained earlier in the week and the river's level has already risen to within a couple of feet of the top of the bank. 

However, for whatever reason I'm not much worried. The predicted scenario doesn't seem quite right to indicate real trouble ahead—not like it did back in March. Call it faith. But the truth is, I simply don't feel the bad vibes; I trust this old river.

I did duck outside long enough to make a quick shot of these droplet-covered tulips. There must be half-a-hundred or more tulips now in bloom, in magentas, pinks, and yellows. Every fall we put out a few bulbs, but we need to mix in more colors—reds from crimson to burgundy, and those that are all but purple, various whites, and oranges the rich color of a robin's breast. A whole artist's palette of tulips to fortify the fading daffodils. 

Over the last two days, the nefarious squirrels have gnawed through the ropes suspending  one of the big seed feeders, and the wire suet block holder—thereby sending both crashing to the ground. I've temporarily sat the fallen seed feeder atop a stump, where it has been generally commandeered by the bushy-tailed perpetrators, to the consternation of the titmice and chickadees. But the suet feeder is empty, which has the various woodpeckers in a tizzy. My guilt at this neglect—not to mention the nasty looks I imagine I'm being given by the downies and nuthatches—has about reached the stage where I'm going to have to figure our how to reaffix it somewhere else for the time being. 

This is the third time in less than a month the same seed-feeder's rope has been cut. Vandals exhibiting a pattern of criminal behavior. I'm getting tired of restringing. So I expect one of the chores I'm going to have to accomplish between rains is to replace every feeder rope with chain, which means a trip to the hardware store—and I might as well add ones for the hummingbird feeders which I'll put out in the next week or so. This also means dragging out my ladder, though I don't think it's long enough to reach one of the limbs I want to use. 

Or…I could simply cook up a big pot of burgoo—squirrel being the stew's chief ingredient. Then I could just redo the feeders using more rope. 

Hummmmm?

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