A Precocious Season

Officially, today is the first day of autumn. Unofficially, harbingers of fall--especially foliage--have been conspicuously visible since mid-August. I can't remember seeing so much color so early in the year (brought on perhaps by weeks of unseasonably cooler nights).

Not that I'm complaining. I love all the seasons--even the harsh, protracted Michigan winters--but fall always has held a special place in my heart.

Below are a few samples of the burgeoning fall colors in our yard:



A viburnum flaunting lustrous purplish-red jewel tones.



A sugar maple already adorned in full autumn splendor.




Another viburnum with leaves gloriously hued in rich wine shades.




This sumac tree has been displaying flaming orange to crimson colors since late August.




The berries of this winterberry shrub (also known as Michigan holly) turned bright red only this past weekend.

He's Ba-ack!

I miss having the windows open while I work, so Mr. Michigander and I decided that if the ventilation pipe were moved, it might deter Tony Peanut from climbing up to the double windows. Then we could put back the screens and once again enjoy the summertime sounds and smells of our wooded backyard.

Last week, the heating and air conditioning men came out and spent most of the day cutting and removing siding, knocking out holes, disassembling, refitting and then reassembling the ventilation pipe roughly three feet away from its original spot--the maximum distance our local building code allows.


Still, the vent pipe no longer provided easy access to the double windows so we happily popped the window screens back into place.

In spite of all the racket, Tony came around once or twice. Much to the workmen's amusement, he sat on the deck railing munching his peanuts and monitoring their progress.

"That should fix his wagon," I told Mr. Michigander, smug in the knowledge that Kamikaze Tony would finally be grounded for good.

I was wrong.

Kamikaze Squirrel

Tony Peanut has left for the day and Kamikaze Tony has taken his place!

While I am busy working at my computer, those peanuts aren't coming out the door fast enough. Kamikaze Tony is not pleased about this. Kamikaze Tony doesn't understand that somebody has to pay for those peanuts. Kamikaze Tony lets me know of his displeasure by taking running leaps at the double windows, which are about five feet above the ground.

All morning long and most of the afternoon, my concentration has been broken by the steady thunk! of squirrel meeting glass (or the plop of squirrel meeting dirt when Kamikaze Tony misses). Note that I have not put the screens back in the windows. No problem. Kamikaze Tony just grabs on to the window frame while he peers in to see what's going on. Gradually, he slides down the slippery frame until he reaches the window ledge. Then Kamikaze Tony leaps to the ground and does it all over again!

The Opportunist

Tony Peanut has been arriving later than usual these past few mornings. And Brindle the Opportunist has taken note.

Squirrel society has a well-defined social hierarchy. Squirrels are not social creatures and not very tolerant of each other or any other critters that share their turf. The only time squirrels come together voluntarily is to mate or to share winter dens for warmth.

Among the 30 or so squirrels we know at A House In The Woods, it quickly becomes apparent who stands where on the squirrel social totem pole. Tony is the Big Chief Kahuna at the top. Brindle is farther down this totem pole--way at the bottom.

Brindle spends most of his time lurking in the woods just behind the deck, waiting for his chance. The moment Tony runs off to bury a peanut or to catch a siesta in his favorite tree, Brindle creeps up to the deck for a handout.

Brinny is an especially timid squirrel. Even after months of taking peanuts from my hand, he is skittish and needs time to work up his courage. This invariably is his downfall, because just as Brindle is tucking into his peanut, an enraged Tony shows up. With an infuriated rush and a good many nips, he chases Brinny off the deck and back into the woods, squealing all the way.

The moment Tony leaves, Brindle is back again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Sometimes, in a brazen act of unthinking foolishness, Brindle scampers up for a peanut right under Tony's nose, with predictable results. Brinny gets his pants kicked and is once again sent packing, empty-handed He may not be too bright, but he sure is brave!

Brindle isn't the only offender, but he is the most persistent. And it annoys Tony to no end that Brindle just refuses to learn his place!

It's good to be the king--but it's not easy when someone is trying to steal your nuts!

Just Passing Through

This wild turkey hen and her six poults are regular visitors to our lot, passing through at least several times a day. We've watched Mama Turkey successfully raise these babies since they were the size of paddle balls with legs no bigger than toothpicks. Since May, the poults have grown to more than half of Mama's size, and by early fall, they will be indistinguishable from the adult turkeys.

Early Sunday morning I was awakened by a series of clucks and grunts beneath my window that seemed to go on and on. Dragging myself out of bed, I looked outside to find an agitated Mama Turkey strutting back and forth across the front lawn, scolding and trying to round up her errant poults who were scattered throughout the garden. Like most adolescents, the poults are moving toward independence and at the same time testing their mother's patience. She finally brought them into some semblance of order and off they strutted, Partridge Family-style, into the neighboring yard. I went back to bed.

Mama Turkey has gotten so used to me that she no longer clucks the alarm and shoos her poults to safety if I accidentally run into her in the yard--just as long as I don't get too close.

The Peanut Junkie

I ended up taking out both screens. Tony Peanut was right back in the window this morning and since it was another volunteer day, I wasn't taking any chances.

Before I left, I placed an apple outside the back door. When I returned an hour later, the half-eaten apple was perched on the deck railing with Tony sitting nearby. That apple must have made a satisfying meal, because Tony refused to budge no matter how much I tried coaxing him with a peanut. But an hour later he was back, trying to cash in his rain check on that peanut.

So far, all of my postings have been about Tony Peanut. While he is a constant presence here at A House In The Woods, he's by no means the only denizen of our rural backyard habitat (just don't tell him that). So it's time for a new introduction.

The Dutch name for raccoon is wasbeer, or "wash bear," mainly for their habit of washing food before eating it. The cute guy in the photo above is Beertje (Dutch for "little bear"), who began showing up regularly at our back door last winter, although we think we met him before that. One night last summer, Mr. Michigander and I were having dinner in the backyard when a third uninvited guest had decided to join us underneath the picnic table. That fearless raccoon cub, we think, was Bear.

If it's the same raccoon, then Bear is probably a little over a year old. With his small size and dopey (but endearing) behavior, Bear still looks and acts like a baby and obviously was the runt of the litter.

He's a pretty well-behaved little guy and seems to enjoy hanging out with us in the evenings while we putter about in the yard. Once, while I was building a moss path, Bear trundled alongside me imitating my hand gestures and patting down the dirt around each newly laid section. When Mr. Michigander moved the outer door in the studio, Bear ambled in and out of the construction site, politely sniffing and exploring Mr. Michigander's tools and equipment but not getting into things.

He even tried to help us paint the front door one evening by dipping his paw into the can of paint. The red tracks he left can still be seen on our front porch. When we sat down to take a break, Bear sat behind me and gently combed through my hair with his paws!

Bear's almost complete lack of fear and his trust of Mr. Michigander and I both intrigues and worries me. For the price of a peanut or a few stale marshmallows, he'll be anybody's best friend. I don't know how or why Bear lost his instinctive fear of people at such a young age, and I worry that his fearlessness might get him in trouble someday.

Fortunately, Bear seems content to stay close to our property, dropping by nightly for his peanut fix. Sometimes he stops by in the morning for a "nightcap" before waddling off to bed in a hollowed-out tree on the northern edge of our lot.

A New Trick

Since Mr. Michigander has been on the road a lot lately, I've set up office at the dining room table (actually two dining rooms tables pushed together end-to-end to create a single long one, as we like to entertain). From here I can see the yard, the deck, the hummers that visit the feeder directly over the double dining room windows and Tony Peanut. From his usual spot on the deck rail, Tony can see me too.

It's been a busy week, and peanut handouts have been scarcer than usual. I tend to get hyper-focused on my work, especially when I'm on deadline, and filter out everything, sometimes for hours at a time. Tony doesn't seem to mind and usually whiles away the time between handouts sunning himself on the deck or catching a snooze.

Last week was different. On Tuesday, my concentration was interrupted by a racket just below the dining room window. Looking up, I saw a small black head pop up, then quickly disappear again. Tony had managed to climb up the basement exhaust pipe beneath the dining room window. He'd been eye-balling this pipe for weeks, and though he could easily leap the three feet between the pipe and ground, he seemed to know he'd slip right off the slippery plastic.

I looked out the window but there was no sign of Tony. Then I heard something running across the roof and looked up just in time to see a small black shape launch itself off the roof edge toward the double windows!

Tony missed--and landed with an audible thump in the yard instead. In a flash, he was back on his feet and climbing toward the roof again.

By the time I reached the door, he'd pitched himself at the windows again and missed. Before he could make a third attempt, I managed to coax him down with a peanut. Minutes later, he was back on the roof again.

Worried that my squirrel had finally gone nuts (no pun intended) and fearing he might seriously injure himself, I ran to the basement and dusted off an old exercise trampoline. If I couldn't stop Tony from pitching himself off the roof, I could at least provide a soft landing. The question was, why was he doing this?

The reason became apparent when I saw Tony perched on the exhaust pipe a few minutes later. He had climbed the pipe to reach the narrow window ledge but kept slipping off. Tony wanted to sit in the window and watch me. His squirrelly brain had reasoned that he could circumvent the pipe altogether and jump from the roof instead.

So I quickly removed one of the window screens and closed the window. Problem solved. Now Tony can climb into the window frame and watch me plinking away at my computer to his heart's content.