A visit with Mama Squirrel

I was out earlier between rains, trying to capture some of the flowers with the drops of rainwater on them. Puss Puss had come and was out following me around, and Roger came out and she started showing off for him. I happened to walk around the corner of the house before they did and spotted Mama Squirrel...
I told him to grab Puss Puss and I ran inside to get nuts and just set my camera down. Mother Cat came in with Roger and Puss Puss, and the boys were sound asleep inside. Mama Squirrel was waiting for me on the trailer...I took the nuts and gave her a handful and thought how dumb I was for not bringing my camera.
I have never been able to quite figure Mama Squirrel's moods out; sometimes I can come and go and she is fine with it. Sometimes, once I leave she don't want anything more to do with me. Windy days are almost always like that...but it was not windy today and I decided to take a chance and come back in and got my camera. I went back out there and she was fine with it.
These were taken with my normal lens--the 18-55 mm one so you know to get this pictures I was right in her face with the camera! I am always amazed that it doesn't scare her. I was checking back in my blog, and according to what I wrote when I still remembered, she has been coming here since the spring of 2006.

Even with all the cats, she still comes up on my back porch....sometimes when I am out in the yard doing something I will turn around and there she is waiting for me. She definitely knows the cats would hurt her. I wish I could be lucky enough sometime to capture the other end of the spectrum--she knows our old dog Shelby will not hurt her and will sometimes walk up and smell her feet if she is laying down.
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Cougar continues to stay closer to home than he did. He left one time and was gone a long time but for the most part he is in and out. He came in soaking wet this morn....does not like to be dried off at all. He now has rainwater soft hair! And that is no exaggeration. He doesn't have what we think of as long hair, yet it is longer than the others and more plush.

Little yellow flowers...

I don't know what these little flowers are, but they are always so pretty. They seem to almost have a glow from within.

Blackberry memories

I think this is so much prettier when enlarged. I took it today--won't be too long till there's berries! A big old blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream sounds wonderful to me!

Our mom always made them in a 9 x 13 cake pan. Its another thing she made without measuring--and they were always good. Ask Neal and Patty. Mom always tried to make one for them when they went home to visit because they liked them so well.

We did not have tame blackberries....I don't know of anyone around there that did. But there were two or three cow pastures where they grew--uncared for in anyway. Other than the cattle that sometimes made paths through them.

Usually mom and I would each take a milk bucket...in our case a 2 1/2 gallon pail. And I always took a little coffee can--at least I think that is what they were they were about 6 inches tall and 4 or 5 inches in diameter. First, some of us would take a nail and make holes on opposing sides, and then we would use wire and make a handle. And off we would go.

Either of our two favorite places to pick berries were less than a mile away--one was within sight of home for the most part....the other was a little bit farther. We would get there, and I would set my milk bucket down and take time to run my belt through the handle of the homemade coffee can bucket. That way, when I came to a good place to pick, I could set my big bucket down and have both hands free to pick into the coffee can. When I got it full, I would just empty it into the big pail.

I don't remember how long it would take us to fill our buckets...I do know that we would go pick after lunch usually, and mom would still have time to make a batch of jelly or can the berries after we got home, and before supper.

You would think the weight of all those berries would have squished them till they were mushy, but it really didn't harm them. Maybe cause we were walking and not the constant vibration had we been transporting them in a vehicle.

Anyway, to this day, blackberry picking is at the top of my list of favorite things to do. And I don't even like to eat them as I pick. I have just always enjoyed picking them. My arms were always full of briar scratches and I would always be full of chiggers. I don't remember my mom ever getting very many of them, but they loved me.

If you don't know what chiggers are, or have never had them....count your blessings. You can read about them here. They are the one thing I would really dread dealing with now. But if I were given the opportunity to go berry picking like that once again, I would jump at the chance!