Molting Turkeys and Flying Squirrels

There has been knitting...poor quality knitting in most cases, but knitting none-the-less. I told you that I was unable to knit a simple sock at Knit Night. Getaloada the turkey dish cloth I knit on Tuesday Dish Cloth Night:

Yes there is a glaring error in the turkey's butt area. Looks like his tail is molting. Since it's a dishcloth and it's just for me, I'm not too concerned. And good news! I have enough of the God-awful circus peanut pink/orange cotton to make another one! Try try again...practice makes perfect and all that. And I kind of like the pattern with the K2togs and YO's in the tail.

Here's one that actually went right! It's my first Conner Cap:



It was fun to knit and I have enough yarn in the correct colors to make a couple more. It only takes an evening or so to whip one up. It's Sharlene Schurch's Straight Stitch Watch hat pattern with a ribbed cuff from her 'Hat's On' book.

And here is a gratuitous Bentley shot....
Poor guy has been having a rough time of it. He's been anxiously watching the 3-mile Island Mutant Squirrels that live in the yard, since we moved in. I swear they go ten pounds a piece. Wicked hefty, Deah. They are the largest, most brazen squirrels I've ever seen. Anyway, lately they have been coming right up to the patio door and provoking him with evil intent. It's pretty unnerving really. He will be minding his business, not even interested and one will come and put his nose right on the glass, look in and squeak. Sometimes they do it in pairs. He runs over and looks at them, with only the thin sheet of glass between them, and then they do that mutant squirrel dance. You know the one with the kind of Pepe-Le-Pew hopping up and down on four stiff legs at once, shaking their tails and scolding loudly. I don't know if it's the fancy dance moves or the chatter, or both, but it sets off poor Ben somethin' awful. He starts bucking and spinning like a mechanical bull, drooling and whining. I just know I'm going to come home one day to a perfect Bentley-shaped hole in the sliding glass door. I feel bad for him because they are so obviously making a fool of him on purpose. You can tell because once he starts in on one of his fits, they grab their little tummies and double over with squirrely laughter, giving each other little rodent high fives. Then they scurry off only to to send another comrade or two back over a few minutes later, after he's calmed down a little, to do it all again. Quick witted as always, Ben treats every volley as if it were the first, a new and novel experience to get all wound up over.

I'm not quite sure what to do about them. My grandmother Grace has a quick solution for the pesky pipsqueaks that involved a .22 as I recall, but that's not my style. I'm more the non-violent wiley type. My initial though is pegging them with a squirt gun filled with vinegar or ammonia water a couple of times or launching them back towards the trees with a badminton racket-kinda 'Whack A Mole' like. My second thought is to just let Ben out. He's too inept to catch them though and I'm afraid they'll escalate their antics to name calling and cussin'. I'll think on it a bit. I'm sure the perfect solution is in here somewhere, I just have to rummage a bit more. (Wanders off mumbling...'Now where did I leave that badminton racket...')

Comments

Elizabeth said…
Hmm. A plastic owl on the patio? Some kind of squirrel repellent? Larger than life cut-outs of cats in the glass? Close the curtains while you're at work?

Owen told me he saw a huge squirrel in our circle last week. I wonder what's up with that...
MadCityMike said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadCityMike said…
Makin' your baby crazy.......hmmmmmmm...I think it "might" call for some drastic action. We use "live traps" for our chipmunk over population, and they then go for a one way drive to visit their country cousins. We've had squirrels get caught in our traps, too, even though the traps are not "squirrel size", but it gets them and keeps them until I let them out. Perhaps after 1 or 2 of the squirrels get trapped, they will spread/SCREAM the word about staying away from Bentley's slider?
Anonymous said…
Best idea!
Get the Dog Whisperer to train Bentley to sit veerrry quietly while the sliding glass door is open. Then on a future day, when the squirrels trot by to do their happy dance in front of him, he can blast through the doors and scare those squirrels into the next county!

Then our Bentley boy can perform his own happy victory dance in the absence of any squirrels as an audience.

Bentley steps in the house / outside the house / in house / outside the house.

I know, not the safest option but one can dream.
YarnThrower said…
Good luck with that! I'll be watching to see how it all unfolds... I love your narrations!
Lisa/knitnzu said…
The squirrels flee for their lives when we let the dogs out... the dogs have to barrel around the former carport (now the driveway is level w/ the street and far below), around the corner, out the door, and up a set of concrete steps... all the while the squirrels high tail it into the trees, and preferably the ones at the edge of the yard. Sometimes they get stuck in the two small ones and the dogs just sit there waiting for them to drop like apples. Once Zuzu (before Gracie was here I think) actually caught and killed one, and did NOT want to give it up. And my neighbor? When she moved in she DID pop them with a .22, during the winter, and it was so snowy, she just left their little carcasses out in the yard. Poor Romeo (the frenchman in the house above her on the hill), he'd been feeding them peanuts all year... must've sent him into ptsd fits seeing all those bodies in the spring. ... We have to keep the front window shades drawn when we're away because the cats taunt the dogs.
I'd say let Ben out after them. They'd stay out of range after 1 or 2 times. However, the danger is that he might catch one. No one wants that!
On the other hand, going through the mechanical bull process is probably good exercise for the dog.

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