Petey

 

The end of March, almost April, and the weather is up & down.

 

One day it's 30 degrees and the next day it's sixty-five.

 

*

 

Over the winter we became enamored by the birds and squirrels in our backyard,

and we hung feeders for them.

 

Now we love them, and might be considered obsessed with them.

 

Filling the suet feeders and the birdseed feeders everyday.

 

We have regular customers; a woodpecker and his wife,

 finches, cardinals, and sparrows,

 and sometimes nasty crows that we shoo away...

 

but our favorite "pet" is a fox squirrel that we have named Petey.

 

He comes around when he feels like it,

 and we run outside, and throw him peanuts...

 

yes, we go to the store and buy peanuts, just for him.

 

We watch for him, we wait for him,

 and when he wanders into the backyard, we become childlike,

running to get peanuts for him.

 

Here's the funny part:

 

We thought that he started coming around just this year,

but Terry was looking through old pictures

 of when we first moved into this house (three years ago),

and he found this picture of Petey on our second story bedroom window ledge.

 

He was here the whole time.