Return of the Chipmunk

Last Sunday saw the first sighting of our local chipmunk or "chickamunk" as my daughter calls him. When I say local, I mean very local. He lives in a hole left by a missing brick in our back stoop. We put out some seeds in a tiny shell plate we have provided for him and look forward t more sightings.

The deer were busy grazing on the dandelions in the lawn and some are visibly pregnant. Hopefully we will be spotting fawns in the yard soon. Dandelions it turns out are a favorite Spring snack for pigs too. We fed handfuls of them to Joanie and Winston the resident pigs at our favorite farm before heading home with fresh asparagus to cook and baby spinach to plant.

We picked up two bunches of lilacs at the super market since our little lilac bushes are just sticks with leaves. Luckily they survived the cold winter and we have high hopes for them in years to come.

All in all a lovely Spring weekend. Hope this one is equally full of good things.

Bird Watching

Scotts has a really nice Bird Identifier tool on their site which provides photos and information about the behavior, feeding preferences and nesting habits of various species. Just enter your zip code and get a full listing of the species that are native to your region.

I have already seen several species from the list of birds local to our region at the backyard bird feeder. Unfortunately no information was available on the little guy I captured in the photo above. Chickadee? I think not. Although my little one identified it as a "Chickamunk". "Chickamunk at bird feed!" Turns out Chickamunk is a very greedy species with voracious feeding habits. I've got your number Chipmunk.