Grubbin'

Howdy All -

It's been a while since I've seen Booker... maybe a week. As always I wondered if this was the week he decided to leave for good; just decided that the aggravation of the new dog in the yard was too much and just packed up his few belongings and lit a shuck for greener pastures. But my fears were laid to rest once again as he put in another appearance at the backyard buffet. Here's a couple of pics:

Yeah, I never get tired of getting the ol' stink eye from Booker.

He had himself a pretty good feed today, off and on for a couple of hours. I even threw him a couple of strawberries, but he hasn't found them yet. Hopefully I'm around when he does because I'm not sure whether he likes them or not. :-B

I also got the Flip camera out to shoot the little egomaniac in HD, but the zoom is really poor, so even though it's HD he was kind of just a spec in the center.  I zoomed in even more and cropped him in Wondershare so maybe that will help. Here take a look:

We'll see if we can't come up with a better video camera with a longer lens somehow. Maybe something by Olympus (he indicated that he prefers Olympus).

Woodchucks chuckin' wood

This is just funny! Nasty looking, redneck woodchucks, but funny just the same. =B
Geico Commercial.

Spring's here, time for new bedding

Howdy all -

Booker slept all winter a bed of leaves he harvested last Fall and I guess he decided that it was time for some spring-cleaning around the ol' burrow. So around noon he got out and had a bit of a forage at the ol' Backyard Buffet and then started gathering some new bedding.

Gatherin' some fresh dry leaves for bedding.

He was probably planning on more than the three trips he took, but noticed a suspicious curtain twitch, gave it his customary steely-eyed-stare, and decided he had enough leaves to arrange for the time being and ducked down into his hole.

Thinkin' that twitching curtain on the house looks suspicious.

Which is really too bad, because that subtle curtain twitch was a fresh ripe strawberry sailing through the air like manna from heaven to land serendipitously next to his burrow entrance.

Why heavens! Is that a strawberry ripening beside my burrow?

A bit of video was shot of the bedding-gathering but Booker determined that the quality was wanting and requested HD.  Rich.  The grubby rat's sleeping on moldy leaves and wants me to buy an HD video camera for his close up!  Sheesh!  If he turns his back I'm grabbin' that strawberry.

Refreshed after a long winter's rest

April 4, 2011  FYI: Pics taken through double paned glass never come out well. =B

Howdy Friends -

I'm very gratified to announce that Booker has awoken from his winter slumber and has put in an appearance at the backyard buffet! The offerings at the salad bar were meager this early in the season — the leaves are not yet on the trees and the grass is scrubby. But by the end of April his favorite tasty clover will be in abundance and I'm thinking of seeding some alfalfa near is burrow for variety, maybe toss him a cherry tomato or a bit o' the cucumber to round out the meal.*

I snapped a couple of pics of him before a sudden squall passed through that sent him bookin' back to his burrow. (At the first flash of lightning I thought I scared the little guy off with my camera flash until a thunderclap followed a millisecond later absolving me.) I'll work on focus later in the season. Stay tuned.

Anyway, above is the first pic of the 2011 Groundhog season and here is an interview with a groundhog in the event your knowledge of the breed has some holes in it.  =B



* Enlarging Booker's salad plate should not be confused with my ongoing efforts to domesticate MacGruder the Squirrel with nuts.  =)