Life in Nebraska

7Feb/101

Squirrel Sandwiches

Vicky's been having fun making squirrel sandwiches lately. I suppose we could call them sandwiches for the squirrels, but I prefer the name squirrel sandwiches.

By accident on one of our grocery shopping trips, I grabbed a jar of crunchy instead of creamy peanut butter, and it sat around in the pantry for quite a while, unwanted, unopened, and unused.

Squirrel Sandwiches 02

We do enjoy feeding "our" squirrels, and Vicky decided just for fun to make a peanut butter sandwich using some of our unwanted crunchy peanut butter and see if the squirrels would eat it. Before putting out this squirrel sandwich, she sliced it into tiny one inch squares to avoid the possibility of just one squirrel taking the entire sandwich.

It turns out, not too surprisingly, that squirrels do indeed like peanut butter sandwiches. These little tiny squirrel sized sandwiches are quite a treat for them, and they will come to the deck, select a sandwich, then scamper off into the arborvitae bush to have their meal, then come back for seconds, thirds, and sometimes a fourth helping.

Squirrel Sandwiches 01

We now have no more of this crunchy peanut butter left, and perhaps on our next trip to the grocery store we may get another jar for the squirrels, they do like this treat, and Vicky has a lot of fun watching them eat their sandwiches.

About these pictures: Obviously these aren't squirrel sandwich photos, but are a couple pictures I took this afternoon.

The top photo is of the friendly one having some bird seed, and the bottom photo is of one of the shy squirrels, trying to be brave enough to come up to me to get a peanut I was holding out for it. No, it was not brave enough yet, but it stayed on the deck to get the peanut I gently tossed in its direction.

Tagged as: Peanuts, squirrels, The Pictures 1 Comment

6Feb/100

Yet More Omaha Snow

Record seasonal snowfall for Omaha? For some reason I can't find that on the internet, but the average annual snowfall for Omaha (Nebraska) is 29.8 inches (at Eppley Airfield).

As of midnight February 5, 2010 Omaha has had 41.3 inches of snow for the season, so we are way ahead of the average for the normal year. Lucky us!

Vicky and Snow on our Deck

Though I'd rather she didn't, Vicky went out and did a lot of snow shoveling before I got home from work. The deck, the walkway from the deck to where we park the car, and the spot where we park our car was neatly shoveled.

As you can see, Vicky dressed warmly for her cleanup of our latest round of snow. That was nice of her to spend 47 minutes shoveling so I didn't have to take a one minute walk through the snow. Note: Vicky timed her snow shoveling just for curiosity.

Craig and Snow on our Deck

The driveway was a bit too much for Vicky, and I'm glad she waited till I got home and we shoveled that together. I had lots of trouble getting the car off the street and up the driveway, but after spending some time shoveling, I finally got the car where it belonged, and we took a few pictures of the snow, and put the snow shovels away for the day and headed indoors for coffee.

More shoveling (the front sidewalks) is still needed, but a look a the thermometer shows it to be about 30 degrees, so it won't be bad, and there is not a rush on that project.

Lilac in the Snow

Here is a nice picture Vicky took of our Dwarf Korean Lilac covered with fresh snow. A glance outdoors this morning shows that the snow is still clinging to its branches, and things do look quite pretty in the backyard.

No matter how nice snow looks, we have had enough of it and will be quite glad once spring finally arrives.