A Few Quick Notes 593

-Despite the fact that we've had nice weather during the day recently, our nights and mornings have definitely been getting cooler.  I'm constantly surprised in the afternoon that I need to take the sweater off that I'd been wearing all morning.

-This weekend, thanks to a reminder from my mother, I purchased some millet.  Since we fed this stuff to our pet budgie in the early 1990s I've been curious about the stuff.  Maybe I'll manage to get around to cooking some of it tonight.  I'm imagining that it will be comparable to quinoa, but I guess I'll have to wait to find out.

-I realize that I'm likely of a dying breed, but I really love waking up to a freshly delivered newspaper.  While I also check online news sources, there's nothing quite like being able to flip through the newspaper every morning.

-Today, while running an unrelated errand I happened to walk by the parliament buildings and was able to see the remnants of some protest activities.  I guess these protests were timed to coincide with the first day of the House's fall sitting.  I also witnessed a corresponding increase in the number of police officers.

-While out on my aforementioned errand I had the pleasure of walking along Sparks Street.  Despite the fact that the pedestrian-only nature of Sparks Street is one of the things I like most about it, I keep getting the sense that it's perceived as some kind of failure.  Though I don't necessarily head there all that frequently, it always seems like a resounding success to me.

-I suspect that the cooler evening and nighttime temperatures are slowing down the growth rates of our plants.  Presumably in the relatively near future I'll have to start wrapping everything up for the season. It will be strange to see our bare balcony after so many months of relatively rampant plant growth.

-On a related note, I think I spotted someone in an adjoining backyard engaging in some anti-squirrel sling-shotting.  I would guess that this means that I'm not the only one frustrated by their presence.

Other exciting plant-related developments that I keep forgetting to mention

After months of waiting and watering our mo(u)rning glories have finally started to bloom.  For the past few days we've been getting between about 6 and 10 blooms each morning.  It's been pretty nice to have a few hours of flowers each day.

One of our avocado seeds has finally started looking like more than just a seed, though it still hasn't produced any leaf growth.  Maybe even more exciting is that despite the fact that they're still not doing much of anything we still have two other avocado seeds that are still alive and may eventually turn into something.

One of the squirrel caused plant casualties that I neglected to mention a few days ago was our banana plant.  For some reason the squirrel decided to rip up one of the incoming leaves.  It's this kind of squirrel behaviour that I just don't understand - what could it possibly be hoping to find in a leaf?

A few weeks ago I purchased a nice piece of ginger with intentions of sprouting my own ginger.  Of course I didn't put the ginger in a big enough pot, but it has started to do its thing and I'm hopeful that every few days we'll keep seeing new signs of growth.  Unfortunately, I'm not particularly hopeful that this ginger plant will ever lead to much edible ginger.

Those were some pretty exciting plant updates weren't they?

A Few Quick Notes 590

-After a few relatively pleasant low-humidity days we seem to have transitioned back into that muggy weather that Ottawa does so well.  It's been so muggy and humid that I'm almost starting to think that the appearance of rain may be helping by cooling things off.

-I guess quite a number of university students started classes today.  Maybe that is why it was a little quieter last night?  I guess we'll probably have to wait until Friday to find out how much of a U of O party scene we'll have to contend with in this neighbourhood.  Hope it's not too bad.

-One of local feralish kittens has taken to sitting on our front steps.

And though at times I've simultaneously seen about ten cats hanging out in our neighbourhood, these days this is one of the few cats I see on a regular basis.  If only this thing was big enough to take on the local squirrels.

-So my cayenne pepper and water solution seems not to have worked (though the squirrels were absent for about 24 hours).  For the past two days they've been back and badder than ever.  If I didn't know better I'd think that they were purposely destroying things before they ripen just so that we can't have them.

The worst part is that I have no idea what it is they are looking for.  They keep digging in the dirt, but a far as I know there isn't anything there for them to find (aside from more dirt - and that doesn't seem to be what they are looking for).  

It definitely bums me out to look at the plants each morning and find that new damage has been done and a bigger mess made. 

-On Saturday Jeannette and I took a day trip to upstate New York.  In addition to witnessing what appeared to be a glee club sing-off in Potsdam, we also managed to find the world's worst homefries.  These bad boys were undercooked, soggy, cold, poorly seasoned, and over-priced.  Oh, and the same at the same place the 'side of fruit' was canned pears.  While we didn't see to many things that we would recommend, on the up side we have started to create a list of places that don't merit a return visit.

(Oh, and we saw five bros buying a 55 inch TV for their apartment.  Probably a pretty solid investment for your average undergrad student wouldn't you say?)

A Few Quick Notes 589

-It looks as though it is going to be a beautiful Labour Day in Ottawa this year, though maybe a few degrees warmer than ideal.

-Because we don't have the same morning rush to readiness today I'm hoping to crank out a batch of raspberry muffins for breakfast.

-Last night, based on a recommendation from my father, I sprayed our balcony plants with cayenne pepper water.  The idea is that this will deter the squirrel from visiting the plants.  I'm a little curious to see if it worked, or if the squirrel responded vindictively to the new flavour.

-Yesterday Jeannette and I engaged in a multi-hour cleaning and organizing event.  Is there any better way to spend a beautiful Sunday?

-Actually, because it's move-in weekend at the local universities (and one of these universities is only a few blocks away) it was nice not to be outside and in the midst of that craziness.

Caught in the act

Since my flurry of squirrel related posts a few days ago I've intermittently been trying to memorialize our pesky squirrel in a time-lapse film.  Until this morning I've been entirely unsuccessful and was evening starting to think that my recently installed ultrasonic rodent annoyer may have been working.

Of course today I've caught the squirrel out in various plants a few times.  Bummer.

On the upside, I was finally able to get some footage of it doing its thing in a few of the plants.

[Embedded video]

I really have no idea why it keeps digging deep into these pots.  I don't think that there's anything at the bottom of these pots that the squirrel could possibly find useful.  Maybe at this point it's just trying to annoy me?

Third time's a charm?

So when I just went back to refill up my coffee mug I again noticed that a squirrel was digging around in a few of the plants.

This time instead of grabbing my water squirter I reverted to loud noise making.  Though the squirrel didn't immediately leave the balcony it didn't take too long before it was at the furthest point away from me and then looking an escape route.

Amazingly, this time, instead of just jumping off of the side of the balcony, the squirrel climbed up one of the support beams and then into a tree.

I'm not if I should be tricked into thinking that this is a different, smarter, squirrel or if the first squirrel has finally realized that just jumping from a third storey balcony onto a garage roof below is not the best idea.

Just to be clear, until today I'd only actually seen the squirrels in the plants one time (though they frequently leave evidence of their visits).  I have no idea why they keep visiting today, but hopefully I've seen the last of them for the day (but I guess I thought the same thing the first time I saw a squirrel make a hail Mary blind jump from the balcony to a roof below).

Damn thing just came back

So I just went out to refill my coffee cup and look at our plants again and again found a damn squirrel messing things up.

This time I was a little bit more careful about my closing the door thing and the squirrel was definitely less responsive to the squirting water thing.  Instead of leaving the balcony it just climbed around and tried to hide.  Of course because there aren't many hiding places on our small balcony this wasn't an entirely effective tactic.

Of course eventually the squirrel decided not to share the balcony with me anymore and again jumped from the side rail balcony across our car and onto the garage roof.  Again my stomach was in my throat as I worried that I may have to deal with a seriously injured squirrel.  Fortunately, like the last time, the squirrel again scurried across the garage roof to safety.

On the up side, I'm learning a little more about the jumps squirrels can safely land.  On the downside, I'm now pretty sure that making the jump the first time didn't scare the squirrel away from our balcony garden.

Maybe we'll have to hire an old guy with an air rifle to sit back there and mind the farm while we're away?

My heart is still pounding

I just went out to the kitchen to refill my coffee mug and take a look at the balcony garden.  While looking at our plants I noticed that one of our local squirrels was digging around in a few of the pots.

I opened the door and stepped onto the balcony to scare the squirrel away.  While reaching for my water squirter (a tool that I use because the squirrels don't seem to respond to me shouting at them) I noticed that there were actually two squirrels on the balcony and that the second squirrel was behind me.  Just as I was getting an accurate sense of the lay of the land squirrel-wise the second squirrel ran under the open balcony door and into our apartment.  At the same time the squirrel I first saw made an unseen departure from the balcony (but by this point I didn't really care where it went or what it was doing as long as it didn't involve the inside of our apartment).

The squirrel then ran around the kitchen at speeds that were unnecessarily fast.  Of course, in addition to running around it was also insistent on taking a convoluted path that seemed to involve jumping on just about everything around.

Almost before I knew what was happening it ran from the kitchen to the living room and continued jumping on things (including Jeannette's knitting box).  

At this point I was pretty worried.  Because I was standing between the animal and the door I was fearful that the squirrel would make its way further into the apartment and maybe even try to stake out a hiding place rather than run through me towards the exit.  And because I couldn't see how to get the squirrel between my body and the door I was worried that any step towards the living room might exacerbate the situation.

Fortunately once the squirrel entered the living room it cut left into the main part of the room and I was able to slip into the room and put the squirrel between my body and the door.  Of course, even though the squirrel was where I wanted it, it's not as though my body was an impenetrable shield that protected the rest of the apartment (all the squirrel needed to do to get past me was run around me).

Fortunately, I think the squirrel was less interested in being in our apartment than I was in having it there.  Once I was in position it ran out of the living room, through the kitchen, and right off the side of the balcony.

All of a sudden the squirrel was flying through the air, seemingly heading towards the pavement two storeys below.  Amazingly, despite the apparent lack of planning on the squirrel's part, the squirrel managed to leap off the balcony, make it all the way over our parked car, and land on a section of garage roof on the other side.  From there the animal, seeming uninjured, scurried away across the roof to safety.

Do you think it's too much to expect that this near death experience will be enough to scare the squirrels away from their now daily destructive visits to our balcony garden?  I really hope so because the visits are becoming more regular and more destructive.  At this point we're hardly harvesting anything because the squirrels keep destroying the fruits of our labour just as they start to ripen (and sometimes even before they start to ripen).