If This Is April, Why Are We Having A Blizzard?

Huh. After having some beautiful, warm, sunny days this month, things changed yesterday. Or rather, they changed the night before yesterday, when we had severe thunderstorms roll through for several hours. When I got up yesterday morning, it looked murky and grey, and was much colder. We got some rain, and later in the morning I was standing in a patient's room, and looked out and saw - snow! Lots of snow - the I-can't-see-across-the-street kind. It managed to snow for a couple of hours, and cover everything in sight. Around lunchtime, we noticed it had stopped. By the time we were done a few hours later, the snow had completely melted, the sky was blue, and streets and sidewalks were dry. The blooming magnolias didn't suffer, the daffodils were standing upright, and the flowering pears were flowering away. It was still a little chilly, but, wow, what an amazing sky!

So, anyway, I DID find a summer knitting project. It's called Greengables, and was on the
Zephyrstyle website. I ordered the Brown Sheep yarn in a pretty blue called Blue Paradise. I have the pattern, the yarn will arrive in about two weeks. Meanwhile, I am continuing to work the the cursed second sock of my Opal Inspiration. While watching the Amazing Race last night, I knitted up a storm, and got all the way down to the toe stripe. &%$#!! I forgot to do toe decreases! So, once again, I ripped back to the point where the decreases should start. I hope to finish the damn thing tonight. Speaking of Amazing Race, I was sorry to see Dave and Lori come in last on last night's show. They were one of my favorite teams.

On the homefront, it appears I may finally have thwarted the squirrels that raid my big bird feeder. I have several feeders in the yard - a finch feeder with nijer seed, which the squirrels hate, a larger feeder in a cage that the squirrels or larger birds can't get into, and a large hopper style feeder. That feeder has a squirrel baffle on the post. The squirrels hop up on it and reach into the feeder. This particular feeder is pressure sensitive, which means that if the squirrels sit on the perch, the feeder door closes and they get nada. So, the smart little devils have figured out that if they stand on the baffle and hold on to the pearch, pushing UP on the perch, they can grab several choice seeds before closing the door. It is certainly fun to watch them, but it's hard on my wallet. These squirrels can clean out five pounds of bird seed every day. And, yes, I do put out food for them - peanuts and sunflower seeds, along with occasional bagels and muffins. I mixed the seed in the birdfeeder with hot pepper mix - supposedly squirrels hate it, and birds don't give a rat's a** about it. So far, it's exactly as advertised. I have tons of birds at this feeder now, and the squirrels are sulking on the ground.

I guess I'll find out if they're cooking up any other plans.