Welcome to the Shire

Poor Brez lost his Mazda RX7 this morning. Here is a tribute to his beloved vehicle.

“He loves Minnesota. He thinks it’s one gigantic field of treats.”

That’s a statement Gwen Beberg gave to the press at her return to Spring Lake Park, Minnesota on January 17 when she was greeted by one of her bestest friends, Ratchet.

Completing her a tour of duty, Gwen is registered for fall classes at Northwestern Health Sciences University to study massage therapy. She also wants to train Ratchet to be a therapy dog.

Last year the army prevented Gwen from shipping her dog home from Iraq. One of her friends, Katie Konrath, wrote about this injustice on her blog Get Fresh Minds. It trickled into one hell of a global outcry. An outcry that the US Army couldn’t ignore.

I wish Gwen and Ratchet, and Katie Konrath the best of luck. May your futures be full of treats.

Asks Brez, a co-worker of mine. “They’re chewing holes in my plastic garbage cans! They devoured my Halloween pumpkins!”

I’ve noticed it too. I’ve got some ca-ray-zy squirrels in my yard this year. They hang upside down on the bird feeder. They’re tarzan-leaping from the trees onto the suet baskets. They’re hanging on the porch storm windows making goo-googley faces at our animals.

There are no nuts this year. Nothing. Na-da. None of the oaks dropped acorns.

At the Washington Post, someone noticed it too. This article called Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop tries to explain why.

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn’t find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.

Virginia, Kansas, New Jersey, New York, Michigan - all reporting no acorns. Experts thoughts range from a too wet spring to a fluke biological event that will go away. But no matter what the reason, it’s going to be a big problem for the squirrels this year. There will be fewer babies and unfortunately, many squirrels will starve.

Oh I know they can be a pain in the ass, but we need to help them out this year. Here are a few tips on feeding squirrels.

Have a feeding spot well away from your bird feeders and from the windows of your house.

You don’t have to buy fancy feeders for them, but, they tend to drag off food. So if you’re going to put out corn cobs, nail them to a tree or something.

What do squirrels like? Well, nuts for one. Try unsalted shelled peanuts or chestnuts.

Sunflower seeds. Especially the black oil kind.

Dried corn on the cob.

Cracked corn.

In fact, if I can get TV Boy in the right mood this weekend, I can get him to drag some cut tree stumps to the back yard near the woods for a squirrel feeding station.

So stay tuned. I might get this all set up this weekend. Cool. This might be my first step to a wildlife habitat out back.

Go to this story about Fred, a loving, homeless dog who deserves a family who will love him. It’s a story that really touched my heart. Also a nice story on why you should adopt a shelter pet.

Written by Chessbuff at On Loving Animals. Chessbuff writes a very gentlemanly blog on Animal Rights, Animal Cruelty, and his volunteer work at The Bloomingdale Regional Animal Shelter. It’s a blog worth checking every day. Tell him “AIR” sent you.

Oh and he also blogs on Chess, but, I’m not that smart.