This is the second night that I'm sitting on someone else's porch. A mosquito is flying around me and I really hope the OFF! is working. I'm sitting here so I can use Kelly's Internet signal. She also has a lovely garden to look at, but it doesn't smell real good over here. Early this spring I wrote about the groundhog digging under her porch. She filled the hole with moth balls. Not quite what you'd expect to smell when you're surrounded by flowers. The groundhog is the only rodent we haven't seen around here in a while. What I have seen is the squirrel. The planters on my deck need water every day, so yesterday when I got home I went down the stairs from the deck to turn on the hose. I noticed two green tomatoes on one of the steps with what looked like gnaw marks. They were perfectly placed side-by-side, so I assumed that Emily and her Dad must have found them fallen down from the planters and placed them there, then forgot them. They looked salvageable as the skin wasn't broken.


I asked Emily about them but she said she didn't know anything. Hmmm, I thought.

I put out a new ear of corn for the squirrels this afternoon before Emily and I left to run errands. We bought, among other things, thistle seed, wild bird seed, and a big bag of corn cobs. When we got home we went out on the deck so Emily could fill the newest feeder (a story for another time). I saw that the corn holder was empty. We weren't gone that long. Still, I was feeling generous so I went to get a new one. Emily wasn't and she went out in the back yard to look for it. Let's see what she found:







This is what he/she (I've seen both, and can tell the difference) is supposed to be eating, but it should be in the corn holder hanging from the deck.


The tomatoes and corn were found a full story down from the deck, and about 30 feet into the woods. Oh, and there were kernels of corn on every step of the deck. I guess he stopped for a bite cause transporting all that booty was a lot of work. It's funny, I had about 10 ripe tomatoes on the counter this morning and was wondering what I was going to do with them all. Little did I realize I'd be sharing what was left on the plants with my sworn enemies, those darned squirrels. I really am mad at them, for all the good that will do me.

On another note, today was really good. I was able to walk this morning. My toe doesn't look good but feels fine. Emily and I did lots of things around the house. I ironed 2 weeks of clothes. That was an accomplishment. I cleaned the wood floors. Big job with lots of elbow grease. We went to Sam's Club, Walmart and the grocery store. We watched The Notebook. Made a tomato pie. Had dinner. A full day, with no drama. Yeah! She's at her boyfriend's now to watch another movie. I'll be picking her up soon.

Well, I'm starting to feel itchy, so I'm going back home. I'll have to catch up on reading blogs another time, unless I get lucky, and get a signal inside my house.