Charmion, are you wearing a mask when you work outside? My friends came to till yesterday evening and we were all wearing masks; as much to keep the pollen out as the dust. The wind has been gusting at about 20mph for the last couple of days so no COVID germs would land on any of us, but the ground is littered with anthers from the oak trees.

There is a fatal flaw in the tree exit strategy that the local squirrels devised last summer. Since the baldcypress is adjacent only to a smaller Mexican plum, there is nowhere to flee via the aerial avenues. The pine branches stretch to within about 10 feet of the baldcypress; the boles are about 20 feet apart. The squirrels get tired of staying in the tree (the dogs will sit under it for hours waiting for the squirrel to move) and one of them tried a new move - get a run off of the end of one of the longest lower cypress branches (they aren't flying squirrels, but they get some good momentum), hit the ground running, and up the pine tree within about 5 feet. I've seen them do this myself, and they land with a "thud" that is momentarily not forward motion.

These dogs study the situation, and Cookie did the math. The squirrel "thud" was the point where she caught it. I had opened the door and usually that was enough distraction for the squirrel to escape, but Cookie knows that trick so she kept her eye on the squirrel. Once she grabbed it (lots of grunts and squeals from the rodent) she had to keep going so Pepper wouldn't grab the squirrel from her. They'd raced around the outside of the cyclone fence kennel before she paused to shake and drop it. I imagine she was getting quite a struggle from the squirrel up to that point.

I didn't look close but didn't notice telltale signs of this being a mama squirrel and the balls on the males are quite prominent, you can't miss them. So this seems to have been a young adult female. Weighing about five pounds, healthy until she met Cookie.

Yesterday at Goodwill I bought a couple of the acrylic insulated cups (clear, two layers, air in between) with the silicone-lined twist-on lid and hole for an acrylic straw. Through breakage I've been reduced to having only two of them and I keep losing track of them around the house, so the executive decision to add a couple of more cups will be offset by the realization that there are art pottery mugs in my cupboard that are never used and need to be offered to the kids or listed on eBay.