It was two young squirrels embroiled in battle.

Maybe it’s all a matter of being in the right place at the right time, but I’ve never seen a single squirrel fall from a tree before, let alone two of them.

They didn’t even separate when they hit the ground. In fact, they looked just like a cartoon… rolling in a ball of dust; tails and legs and stars flying.

Damn. I never have a camera handy when the kewl stuff happens, but I sketched this reenactment of the actual events for you.

The fight continued for about 15 seconds.

Then they suddenly looked up, looked at each other, raised their paws to their cheeks and screamed “OMG DOGS!” in their squeaky little squirrel voices, and they raced back up the tree.

(Okay, so I made that last part up. Neither of them really resembled Macaulay Culkin that much.)

We also have a large Mulberry tree, and it’s just a matter of days before I can harvest the juicy red berries.

Hopefully there will be a few left by the time they fully ripen, because the birds are fond of them too, and the tree is literally alive with Cedar Waxwings, Cardinals and Orioles.

I don’t know what we were thinking when we planted that tree so close to the driveway. Both the birds and the fallen fruit make a huge mess of things.

I also don’t know what we were thinking when we left the back windows down in the car the other day, because we later discovered that we were the victims of a fly-by-shitting.

The evidence on the backseat suggested that a bird of above average size had flown through while performing aerial stunts.

I was amused. Mr. Kewlstuff… not so much.

So, I’ve switched gears. I’m no longer trying to be upbeat. Now I’m listening to this…

(Turn your volume up. I think this just may be Ray Charles’ soul channeling through a skinny white dude.)

I don’t mind thunder, but lightening scares the bejesus out of me. It scares the bejesus out of the dogs too, and we usually end up piled on Mr. Kewlstuffs lap. It’s not like we have any control over it; it’s a scientific fact that the laps of the fearless become a magnetic field during electrical storms. But hey, at least I’m not afraid of the vacuum cleaner.

So I dug around in my favorites this morning and pulled out a feel-good song. This video always takes me to a happy place, even in the face of impending storms…

Spring has finally returned to my little part of the world. The daffodils are blooming, the birds are singing by 5am and the highways are littered with roadkill. Temps neared 70° today, so, on a whim, we said screw the yard work and made our annual spring pilgrimage to our favorite burger joint. I swear, the place gets farther away every year; but, after passing 5 dead raccoons, 1 skunk and a possum, we were there. What the place lacks in atmosphere, it makes up for with the food. I’ve never had a better burger anywhere, and they make the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever tasted. I’m pretty sure I won’t have to eat again until Wednesday or Thursday.

Okay, I’m off to clean out the spam that’s accumulated the past couple of months. Gotta love those spammers; they always have something to say.

But that’s not the reason I popped in today…

About 9,000 of us from around the globe watched in real-time yesterday afternoon as a black bear in MN gave birth to a pair of cubs. If you missed this event you can’t blame me, because I told you about the dencam last year, just before Lily gave birth to a single female cub that was later named Hope.

There was so much drama between Hope and Lily over the course of the summer that it was sometimes difficult to watch. And I suspect, now that Hope is denning with Lily and her new half-siblings, the drama will continue.

This is an amazing opportunity to glimpse into a world most of us couldn’t have imagined, and it’s all made possible by the efforts of the dedicated researchers at the North American Bear Center.