Our house has a two level roof with the living room having a roof with skylight that is one flight lower than the rest of the house. I don't know if it is the roof construction or something else, but everything that touches this section of roof echoes into the living room below. Rain that is barely noticeable in the upstairs bedroom sounds like a torrent when we are in the living room.
We were doing some housework upstairs when we saw this poor bedraggled squirrel. This roof, because it is protected on two sides, tends to collect leaves and seeds a bit longer, so there are often squirrels and other wildlife taking advantage of the easy food source. It is theoretically getting colder (right now it is bouncing between nice and frigid). Pretty much every critter that doesn't pass their time in the south is doing nothing but eating to get through the big cold.
This photo is from Thursday, the later in the week we had more visitors. We noticed them out of our porthole window and snapped our pictures. They were used to people enough to ignore our sounds from the other side of the glass. Later, I was in the living room and I heard tromping going across the living room ceiling. Tromp! It sounded like a herd of elephants (or a group of people trying to run across one of the platforms during a show). I didn't think it was Saru-chan, though it is conceivable that I would heard her running like a crazy cat upstairs.
But no. It was what we've dubbed the Squirrel Family.
Saru-chan was completely curled up in bed, loafed out and oblivious to the world and downstairs I was laughing about our noisy neighbors.
tromp.
Tromp tromp.
Tromp Tromp TROMP.
It was about 20 minutes of them skittering around before either they stopped or I was too busy to notice it anymore. I was making brunch (curried home fries, bacon and sausage, eggnog french toast, spinach and parmesan strata, pumpkin oatmeal) and I don't remember if this was when I was making brunch or making cheesecake, and just stopped having time to notice the hilarity of our little outside furballs.
I love the wildlife and soon it will be that time of year when I try to remember to put out the bird seed. We have a feeder in the front yard, but it was put in place in the most useless spot for birdwatching. We should move it, because now you put seed in and you cannot see the feeder from the living room windows unless you carefully position yourself. The best spot to watch is near the fence in the back yard. At least moving it would give Saru-chan a different station for her cat TV.
Not that she really watches the squirrel family. She is a champion loafer, and watching the squirrel station is more effort than she wants to put out.
