Ever since we moved to Canada we have had flying squirrels in our garden. Many people have never even seen them and some don’t know they exist because they are nocturnal and so go unnoticed. We have at least three in our garden most nights. One, who is quite small tends to stay in the tree at the front of the house and eats from the hanger there. He is pretty skittish and zips off really quickly if we shine a light on him or try to go near him. However the pair we see in the back garden are very tolerant of us intruding on their lives.
They don’t seem to mind when we stand at the windows shining bright flashlights at them, nor will they generally flee if we go near them. Last night they were about again and Chris decided to go out and get some photos of them. It was about 9:30 at night and so very dark. I stood at the window shining the light on them and Chris went out and took photos. He was able to get within a couple of feet of them and here are the results. Are they totally cure or what?
Their coats appear so silky and shiny and with their huge eyes, they look adorable. They are almost between a squirrel and a chinchilla. They get their name from the flap of skin between their legs which acts as a sail and allows them to glide, or fly, between trees. We adore them.
We have been having the strangest winter, weather-wise. Hardly any major snowfall to speak of and not many days when the temperatures have gone down to the -20′s a they usually do. In fact so far we have gotten off really lightly, but will it last?
Last Friday we had a good amount of snow fall, about 4 inches which made for a long and not very nice drive home. It was cold Saturday and Sunday but apparenlty temps are going to rise again this week which will take away most of the snow. Very strange. We did have a few days of bone-chilling cold and this was the result of an ice storm a couple of weeks ago. Chris took this of our deck.
We have noted some of the plants starting to sprout and trees are starting to get buds on them, well ahead of time. Trouble is if we do end up getting winter late it might kill everything off before it has had a chance to grow at all.
The deer have not been round as much this year, but the raccoons have unfortunately.
One good thing is we have had lots of nice sunrises and sunsets. This was one the other night.
Looking ahead, Stacey and Amy will be coming out again in June, so that will be great. Not sure where we are going to the them as we went to a lot of places last year and of course Stacey has been a few more times than Amy so has been to even more places. I’m sure we will think of somewhere. Have to get our thinking caps on. At least the weather should be good, although there will be bugs about at that time of year which will be annoying.
