Wetfeet - The Squirrel Toss video seems to have been removed. Bummer. Richardol - Oh, you meant the real Mark Trail. Cool. Interesting info - Squirrels that are black are grey squirrels w/ a different gene in play.* I first saw black squirrels in N. MN and thought they were pretty. They probably eat orchids, too. RP, red squirrels in the U.S. aren't endangered, but I just ran across info on Wikipedia about grey squirrels taking over in England, partially because they have no natural predators. That's too bad. "On some occasions, during the fall, large numbers of gray squirrels will search for new places to live. It is thought that this behavior, known as emigration, results when squirrel numbers are high and food is scarce. When mature forests covered most of eastern North America, this mass movement of squirrels was quite spectacular." http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/greysquirrel.html Can you imagine a "mass movement of squirrels"? It'd be like the Hitchcock movie "The Birds" or the attack of the killer tomatoes. "Hunters have to be quick and accurate to shoot the swift and elusive eastern grey squirrel. It is interesting to note that naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton credited these qualities of marksmanship, developed to a high degree by early American squirrel hunters, with helping to defeat the British during the American revolution." http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=89 Wow. My grandfather, who grew up in rural Arkansas, often shot squirrel, which we ate. Wild turkey, too. I didn't realize what a good shot he must have been. Any of you who can shoot a squirrel - amazing. The fact that squirrels travel through their territory in the same sequence each day suggests loads of possibilities. If you knew the little darling was going to hit your back yard around 5:30 every afternoon... http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Sciurus_carolinensis.html "Are There Squirrels in Heaven?" This and other topics are discussed on another anti-squirrel site: http://www.scarysquirrel.org/page1.html. WC8 *"Eastern grey squirrels Sciurus carolinensis commonly occur in two colour phases, grey and black, which leads people to thinkÂmistakenlyÂthat there are two different species. Black is often the dominant colour in Ontario and Quebec, toward the northern limits of the species range. Farther south the black phase is less common and is not found at all in the southern United States. This may indicate that the gene responsible for black coloration has some cold-weather adaptation associated with it." http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=89

I know I am a bit slow on the uptake, but don't understand the spammer reference? Was it a rhetorical comment, or do we have a poster using multiple user names? Can you tell it's a slow evening here ~ not loving the fact that it is getting darker so much earlier now! Anyhoo, would someone clear that up for me? Too funny (and so true) about the popping the inflatable lawn decs. One year I purchased a 8ft inflatable Grinch for DH's birthday. The worst day of the year for my DH is the day the Christmas decs go up. Just makes his skin crawl. Over-decorated yards drive him crazy too. I had the thing up, inflated & lit when he arrived home from work on the evening of his birthday. It lasted all of 3 days ~ bad weather preventing its dismantle sooner! We ended up giving it to a family who just loves those type of lawn ornaments during the holidays. The cost and effort involved were so worth it just to see the look on his face when he walked in the door that evening. Priceless.

OJ, I try so hard to make my words sweet, but I'm afraid I fail miserable. At least "salty" isn't as bad as "drunken sailor"! I've tried to limit "real" swearing to "Oh Helles Belles." I've sworn to myself to never use the "OMG" that is seen and heard everywhere. I've bit my tongue until it's bled, but now I say "Gracious" or "Oh Gracious" in its stead. As for salt...I've just about reached 100% salt free. For the first few months I thought I'd die from lack of "flavor" in my foods. Now, everything salt free tastes fine; if I eat anything processed I almost gag from the saltiness.

My neighborhood is about 1/2 decorated. We are an older neighborhood with quite a few people that are retired and others that do not celebrate. The neighbors next door to us and directly across the street have second homes, where they are spending the holidays, they did not decorate. No consistent decorating style of those who stay home during the holidays, both white and colored lights with one light shower. The light shower actually looks better than I thought it would, it would really work well if they combined the shower with some basic lights. No blow-ups, but a few attractive lawn decorations. Many of the neighbors have Christmas trees in their windows, probably the most consistent Christmas decor here. Unfortunately, we do not have windows in the front. One thing that we have that is a little unusual, is our side of the street backs up to a ravine/small canyon. Many of us on both sides of the ravine put lights along our decks or the top level of yard in the back. Looks very pretty. Our tree can be seen through our windows by some of our neighbors with homes backing to the canyon. My daughter who is 22 and I, go out for a night of viewing Christmas lights every year. We have some near-by neighborhoods that do fabulous displays.