A cuter, furrier and more annoying rooster

My friend Andrea lives just a few blocks from me, and for months she's been asking me if I hear the neighborhood rooster. I finally heard it a few weeks ago, and learned that city roosters aren't as devoted to the crack of dawn as the legendary country crowers.

Of late, I have been awoken, though, by what I thought was some other winged creature has taken to serenading me by weak sunlight. It wouldn't be so bad if there was any kind of variation of tone and if it didn't go on for so long. I counted 200 "chik-chik-chiks" on Friday morning before I gave in and got up. Click here for a strikingly similar, but shorter, performance.

I laid there, counting, and wondering what the hell kind of bird has that staying power. It was like a woodpecker drilling through a forest of Redwoods. It just wouldn't stop. Not even, it seemed, for a breath. 

Later that day, I mentioned it to Ali. "Oh, that a**hole," she said. "Yeah, I've heard it, too." 

Saturday morning, Jeff heard it start after I'd been to the bathroom. "It's the toilet," I said, half-way back to slumber land. 

"There is no way that's the toilet," he said.

I laid there and listened. Sure enough, it was the "chik-chik-chiker" back on alarm-clock duty. I let it go a while and then got up and peered through my window, trying to identify the alarmist. It took me a while, but I spotted him sitting on a brick that hides the end of a drain pipe in front of one of my garden beds.                              

We've seen him scurrying inside that pipe for seemingly no reason but also to escape the neighbor's cat. He stays in there for hours, so we've wondered how decked out his little hideaway is and how often he has to redecorate when the water wooshes through.

Tiger Lilly, the cat lurks by the pipe every so often hoping the chipmunk won't know she's there. One day, apparently bored of waiting for her prey to emerge, she peed on the pipe and stalked away. 

Another day, I saw her trotting up the drive (on the other side of the house) with a board-straight chipmunk dangling from her mouth. As she triumphantly marched into her own yard, I gave her a nod to congratulate her persistence only to see her a minute later staring balefully as the chipmunk as it escaped up the back fence. It was a slow escape, but clearly it had outsmarted the cat by playing dead.

Given that it's Tiger Lilly who's bullying it, I don't know why the chipmunk is spending its mornings waking ME up. By all rights, it should be sitting outside Tiger Lilly's window. 

Between the chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels, the antics of the local wild and not-so-wild life has been mostly entertaining.

Except for this morning when Jeff discovered a squirrel (probably) had defiled my newest flower bed. I'd driven down to Jasonville to pick up some artwork fashioned by my sister, Deb, and her husband, Steve. I'd always known she was talented, but Steve's stepped up with great welding and other skills lately and they make all kinds of fun stuff. Their latest work are these big metal flowers created out of an rotary hoe. I almost snagged a shovel that has a sunflower cut out of the shovel end of the tool. Instead, I limited myself to three metal flowers that just barely fit into my top-down car.

In addition to the "flowers" she sent me home with succulents and pots of a new ground cover, which is a Seedum variety.

I'd put them on either side of the new flowers and between hydrangeas I planted last year in my back yard where I've slowly been pushing back some creeping myrtle. Overnight, a critter dumped over one of the pots of ground cover so I'm hoping the broken off bits will take root. My first suspect is the guy in the video to your right. He's as brave as the chipmunk is loud.

We've done a bit of yard work this year, including the relocation of a ratty looking kindling pile that used to live on the west side of our garage where it greeted Lois -- owner of the oasis next door.

I moved the brush pile behind the shed where it's much harder to see and replaced it with some Black-eyed Susans, a hosta, a mound of basil and a clump of cilantro. Behind all of that, I sprinkled a long line of Lois's sunflower seeds. If my squirrel friend doesn't feast on sunflower seeds, she should have something much nicer to look at this summer.

Jeff and Ali were slow to embrace the woodpile relocation plan as they'll have to walk 25 extra steps to dump sticks or for fire fire, but they're coming around to the aesthetics.

Ali helped me refill the porch pots with another round of Juncus Twisters, or as we call them, Medusa plants. Ali found it last year, and our first one stayed green nearly through winter. The dog and cat that guard them have lost the solar glow over the years, and they do nothing to intimidate the wildlife, but I still like them.

Ali was having a good time with them until a six-inch-long earth worm protested her soil displacement. No amount of reasoning with her about how the worm is a sign that the soil is good was enough to get her to get back to filling that pot. I'll have more luck with her silencing the chipmunk.