Baby Sqwerls and Irises

Well, it's been pretty nice being up here in the mountains all the time.  Rich thinks I'm more relaxed already.  We have more time together, even without our commute time.  On Tuesday through Thursday, we can sleep in late, make coffee and have breakfast together, and hang out for a couple hours before he leaves for the studio.

On Saturday, we got home in the afternoon, and I noticed Seamus watching a corner of the room very intently.  Cats can be strange this way, but it occured to me he might have a mouse trapped in that corner.  Sure enough, he did, but not a mouse, it was a tiny ground squirrel!  We moved a bookcase and the chase was on again.  A couple of times, we were sure the poor thing had expired.  After a couple minutes, we were able to catch it with a towel and release it outside.  It was the cutest thing you can imagine -- looked like this:

The next day was Mother's Day, and we went to Rancho Bernardo (about 1-1/2 hours away) to visit our mothers and also to celebrate Rich's & my birthdays (5/13 and 5/3 respectively) at the same time.  We all met up at my Mom's house, and she put on the most amazing meal.  We all had a great time.  It was sunset when we returned, and in the house was a dead baby ground squirrel.  Not sure if it was the same one, I think not -- it had darker coloration than the other one. This one had been dead for a while - rigor mortis had already set in.  Poor little dudes!  They're damn cute.  Well, we wanted a hunter!  Be careful what you wish for, eh?

Last spring, we had some "African Queen" irises come up. I'm thrilled to report that more are on the way again this year.  Two stalks have popped up so far.  It will be a while longer before they bloom. I'll post pix when they do. Here's what they looked like last year: