Random Ramblings

Of Introverts and Forest Friends

I know the last couple of weeks I've been promising to write something about plants, but I didn't get my indoor gardening done this week and we're not going to tackle the pond garden until the weekend. So . . .

I'm going to start today with a word about introverts. And the reason I felt introverts worthy of mention is because (a) I am one and (b) I stumbled across two very good articles about them. The first is There’s Nothing Wrong with You. You’re an Introvert. If you're not sure what an introvert is, let alone whether or not you could be one, this is a must read for you.

The second article, Introverts Explained: Why We Love You But Need to Get Away From You, is the best explanation of why we introverts need our alone time that I've ever seen. If you live with an introvert (or suspect you do) you really need to read this.

On to the forest friends . . .

You've already met a few of my forest friends this year, like Mr. Fox:

And Mr. Raccoon:

And the mallard drakes:

The number of drakes who come visit our pond has doubled since that picture was taken. Apparently the word is out on our pool. :-)

Last weekend I had a chance to relax on the deck. The lady duck, whom I call Daphne, was lounging in the pool when my husband decided to hose down the patio furniture on the deck. What he didn't realize was that as soon as Daphne saw the hose going, she jumped up on the deck to have a shower:

Once the hubby was finished with the hose, she went back into the pool for a bite of lunch:

Later on her mate came to visit, but for some strange reason he decided to run laps around the back yard:

Sorry for the blurriness of the picture, but he was moving at a pretty good clip! I also had at least two, maybe more blue jays pay me a visit. This first little guy wasn't quite sure how badly he wanted one of the peanuts I left on the deck railing for them, so he kept vigil up in the tree for a while:

He finally came down out of the tree, but he still gave me the stink eye:

And at last he posed for his portrait:

When I went inside to get the peanuts on Saturday, I actually got them for my little squirrel friend. He only ate two of them before disappearing, which is when the blue jays swooped in. But he did come back later on, and was a little ticked that I hadn't chased off the jays:

Snooze you lose, my furry little friend. ;-)