Arrrgh!!!

Well, I lied. We've seen LOTS of wildlife in the past week, but no lions or tigers or bears.

We saw an amazing number of egrets as we traveled through central Florida, and there was one big old grey heron at the golf course in a dwindling water hole.

Sunday and Monday I was treated to pelicans, storks (we think), and a short sandpiper-like bird at the shore. The storks were white with black-tipped wing feathers.....very dramatic looking birds!

I was surprised to see an amazing number of hawks circling the urban areas. I would have expected to see them over the drier areas of the marshes, but we saw groups of three where there were large concentrations of homes and businesses.

We came home to cold weather following a snow storm that left at least four inches at our doorstep, maybe more. I took pity on the deer, raccoon and the possum and set out ears of corn. Of course, the squirrels and raccoons and bunnies claimed a portion of it. Everybody is hungry, with all the grass and plants covered up. I saw a bunny pruning my sage plant the other day.

I put up a bird feeder that is a cylinder of hardware cloth with four wood ribs, a wood platform and a wood lid. I think the raccoons have been getting a diet of wood at night. Today when I checked the feeder, I found that half of two of the wood ribs have been eaten away. I think Dear Husband can create replacements so I can rebuild the feeder, but it's aggravating to have to do this kind of maintenance.

Edward Scissorhands missed me while we were away. My-Sister-The-Nurse tried to get him to sit on her lap, but he said it just wasn't the same. Rather than getting the cold shoulder when I returned, I had a cat glued to my body, asking to be loved up. Ed is fifteen, and this past year has been hard on him. Our vet asked me to try to shift him to either Iams or Science Diet foods. Ed informed us in no uncertain terms what he thought of that. Rather than starve him, we're going to let him have the food he wants. I think this is likely to be our last summer with Ed.

Soooooooo...that's the fur and feather news for the day!