A couple of weeks ago we noticed a new hole in the ground by our back wall. Only one critter around here really digs holes quite as big as this one was (and in this fashion), so we knew we had a new squirrel tenant.
We presume it's a she because of her size. She's showing a lot of pooch in her belly, so we may have a litter soon. She's shown herself a couple of times over with the birds at the bird feeder, and has been peeking out from her hole around sun-up and sun-down. Skittish though. Even from the far side of the house as soon as I would poke my lens around to get a shot, she'd escape down her hole before I could get one taken. This morning she paused a bit before vanishing.
Hopefully she'll become friendly over time. Another reason to keep the bird feeder stocked. :)
Late update on this one.
A couple of months ago we finally ditched the last of the "grass" in the back yard. The pavers were extended out for the most part, then they matched the gravel color and worked it all in. While they had the ground tore up doing various things they were also nice enough to tie two channels into the irrigation for us. One is for the native ground plants and will give them the tiniest amount of water. The other channel, which has several drops around the yard, is higher flow for potted plants, the herbs, etc... Even though they're tiny in the shot, there's some new lantana there, gopher plant and some other thing I can't remember the name of at the moment.
Anywhoo... we can now have 1. more people on the patio and 2. have a table sitting out where there's some room instead of being smack in the middle of a 6 foot wide paver walkway.
