The Suet Wars

Naughty Raccoon Raiding Suet Feeder

 

 

 

 

Baby Squirrel on the Suet Feeder

This is getting to be expensive.  Every night the raccoon takes $1.75 worth of suet from the feeder.  Every day, the blackbirds eat a whole cake, amid much chasing by moi.  Another $1.25.  That's three dollars a day times 30--eek!  This is becoming expensive. 

We will try the suet cakes with hot pepper to determine if the mammals don't like it.  For the blackbirds, we may stop using the suet cakes with seed and just use plain old suet.  Last night something took down two suet feeders.  One with suet , one empty.  The poor baby woodpeckers are having a hard time.  A bluejay tried to chase the baby red squirrel, whom I do not really begrudge his portion.  I begrudge the big squirrels, raccoons and blackbirds big time.

Why doesn't one of those damn bigs hawks carry off a squirrel of a jay?  Every year it's a battle.  In the meantime, the American Goldfinches are draining the thistle seed.  That's O.K.  There are territorial battles and the males don't get along at all.  As usual, the women and children do. 

The garden is water-logged from all the rain and the thyme looks sad.  Too much agua. 

I prepared a fine dinner tonight--broccoli quiche, homemade herb bread, grapefruit and avocado salad, and now the guests blew a tire and will be late, late, late.  Yeast bread waits for no man.  Oh yes, there's also fresh blueberry bread and berries for dessert.  We'll eat it whenever.  And enjoy it.  Just like those #*!!*% raccoons. 

Cell Phone Operetta and a remix of Macbeth staring Mama Grizzlies

I get lots of odd ideas which I seldom act on. Probably for the best.   For the last congressional election, for example, I was working on a "remix" of the Macbeth  witches speech featuring Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle from Nevada and the sorta-kinda witchy woman from Delaware. OMG, I have forgotten their names already.  Yes, Christine O'Donnell.    Instead of Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd, I had Thrice the wounded moose has called. 
That sort of thing.  


Round about the  tea pot go;
In the poisond' rhetoric throw.

Would it have gone viral for my 15 minutes of fame?  Macbeth?  Viral?  Ha. ha.  My remix would have been beaucoup work and I was trying to finish my book.  Priorities, damn it, priorities.


So, another idea popped into my head today, for a cell-phone opera.  Two women, a soprano and a contralto yakking on their phones all day, while their husbands/boyfriends try to reach them.   The bass and the baritone.  No tenors need apply.    The scenes would be in an SUV and in a supermarket, a locker room at a health club, trying on shoes at DSW, and of course there would be cause for a lot of drama.  Stuck in traffic, no baby bok choy today, running late, the dry cleaners ruined my blouse. A typical day in the life of a suburban mom.  Imagine  the soulful arias,  the grand gestures, and the collective children could be the chorus.  Solos, duets, sturm und drang.

Sometimes I wonder what I've been smoking, and then I realize nothing.  Just the clean, exurban air.   
We fed the cows to fortify them for the upcoming storm, and I fed the birds as well.  The cats have enjoyed 3-D entertainment with the birds on the deck, not three feet away.   The little sparrow that hangs around all the time was eating suet yesterday.  Omnivorous.  As are we. 

We're eating chicken cutlets in a sauce of lemon juice and capers.  Tomorrow, the snow storm menu is chili with sirloin and black beans.  I bought stone ground corn meal for the corn bread.  And fresh buttermilk.  My grandma always called "regular" milk "sweet milk," to distinguish it from buttermilk.  In New England, buttermilk is underappreciated.  Low-cal and tart, wonderful for baking and pancakes and  waffles. Drink more buttermilk.  Eat more possum.  Whatever. 

Me and an organ grinder in Berlin, summer, a few years back. 

The falling barometer must be making me weird.