That loud collective sigh of relieve you just heard was a result of finally getting through all the hard work that goes into putting on our annual Halloween party.  Probably logged less than 8 hours of sleep during the last three days.  Thanks for both my brothers and numerous friends from work .. .and of course Linda, we managed to get it all pulled together in the nick of time.  Once again, I broke my promise to Linda and failed to get everything set up on the haunted trail before guests started arriving.  Luckily everyone chipped in to finish getting all the batteries loaded and a few tweaks to the linkages on some of this year’s new creations.  Everything went well until the last guests departed and then the skies let loose with a steady shower for the rest of the night.  Will take some time getting everything dried out and stored away for next year.  With the party worry over, I can focus on the next crisis…

pissed off squirrels!!  No, just kidding, Squirrels are too cute to be pissed off.  Honestly, have you ever seen an angry Squirrel?  Every time I see them they are busy chasing each other around the backyard or wandering around digging holes in random spots trying to remember where they left their prize nut.  My pressing crisis is the fact it is the end of the month (Ron’s birthday as a matter of fact) and I’m short on my personal blogging quota.  That is why I’m at the keyboard at the moment and not dreaming about sugarplum fairies or next year’s Halloween props.

As a change of pace, thought it would be fun to feature something with fur instead of feathers. These first shot comes to you courtesy of a birding trip to Kentucky back in April 2015. Unfortunately, I am not up on all my Squirrel species. Thanks to growing up in the Heart of Illinois, I spent much of my years up until college thinking there was just one type of Squirrel. That would be the Eastern Grey Squirrel.  When I started branching out into the world, I noticed there are actually more than one species, yet all cute as can be.  The shot above came from Starved Rock and based on my untrained eye, looks to be the same Eastern Gray variety.

Hit he jump to see a couple more varieties captured on our birding escapades.

Next up is one from Minnesota back in July of 2017. My apologies, but I am unable to remember exactly where this was taken. That may be the vast amounts of alcohol consumed tonight once the decorations were successfully deployed hehehehe.  This one has a scrawnier tail than the other Grays above it and what looks to be a bit more brown.  Regardless, this likely female was raiding someone’s bird feeder.  Nimble little critters – took me a long time to figure out a bird feeder system that they were unable to breach.  Likely just a matter of time before one figures out it can find a long sturdy stick and pole vault over my barriers – when that happens, they won’t be so cute anymore!

I also found this Red Squirrel (my educated guess at the moment) on the same trip to Minnesota.  No idea if they have Red Squirrels in Minnesota, but this sure looks red to me.  Did I mentions Red Squirrels have a special power that makes your camera sensors distort and pixelate.  This happened on the shot above and the shot below which happened to be taken at Biltmore Estates in North Carolina back in July 2014 – amazing.

… hold a second, Linda is making a comment from the other room. Sorry, Linda has informed me that Red Squirrels do not have any special camera distortion powers and that, in fact, is totally due to my poor execution. Is there any  harsher critics than a spouse – me thinks not. Not exactly the most trusting one, I did do so quick checks and was unable to find a solid reference on this special ability and came up empty. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Thought I would leave you with a quick shot of my favorite squirrel species, the Black Squirrel.  There were a few of these around Champaign-Urbana when I was going to school there,, but I really didn’t notice them much until I started hanging in Davenport Iowa.  These Squirrels are cool and they know it.  They are rarely seen without their cheap black sunglasses… what!?! – okay, Linda has dispelled that rumor as well. I think it’s time for bed. Have a good one everyone – see ya again real soon now!