My geographical focus is now quite different. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m now where I live in the summer, in Maine in New England, top-right-hand corner of the USA, where I provide food and shelter for a variety of rodents.
My main battle is fighting the marauding groundhogs, who have eaten my garden down to naked stubs. This is what remains of a large clump of hollyhocks that I have been nurturing for years:
And this is one of the culprits. Luckily roses seem to be one of the few things he doesn’t eat.:
While I was deadheading the roses in the foreground, a white-tailed fawn (still spattered with white spots, just like Bambi) almost ran me over: very sweet. but quite voracious. Its mother has taught it that my garden offers a top-notch buffet.
The most obvious inhabitants of my garden are the aggressively territorial red squirrels. They are unrelated to our wimpy UK reds, and chatter loudly at each other and me if we overstep the mark.
But I like watching them groom:
And forage for good dried grass for their nest inside my shed:
where they store and eat their stash of hickory nuts in the winter:
And when the day is done, a drink out of the birdbath, and a brief hangout on the rim:
Eyes on the Wild 