Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Eye for an Eye


We have a lot of squirrels around our home.  And when I say "a lot," I'm talking around a dozen almost all the time.  Although there weren't as many around last spring when our yard was part of the fox's regular milk run.

A pine fell over in the back yard a few years ago.  It wasn't even the wind; it just fell over.  One evening late, there was a loud boom and I went out to see what caused the noise and discovered it.  I hadn't realized it was so thoroughly dead.  It fell right across our deck.  Amazingly, some of the limbs drove into the ground and stopped the trunk from taking out the top rail by only about two inches.  The insurance company (I didn't make a claim) would have called it an act of God, and I would have agreed.  It was so perfectly laid out over the deck with absolutely no damage.



Call me crazy, but I left it there for several months.  Ask my wife.  She'll tell you.  I finally cleared it out after several months, but not because my wife was pressuring me to do it.  I just was afraid the neighbors would start to think I really was crazy.

While it was there, though, it created a great stage for all kinds of birds and, of course, squirrels.  The tree made a great background for natural looking pictures.  One of my favorites is this rather abstract photo of the eye of a gray squirrel.  I was able to shoot through the kitchen window over the sink without the animals being aware that I was there.  I was using the piece of junk lens I have mentioned before, but I don't even mind that in this particular case.

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