what the...

there has been no snow or freezing rain for more than a week now, so i am going to take the bold move of declaring a start to iced-coffee season. yes, we are still getting overnight frost warnings in this part of the globe, but that only really affects folks who have a field of crops to worry about. so, yeh... i think Winter may actually... finally... be done. cheers!

naturally, this is the time of year when i usually have seedlings waiting to go for the balcony garden project, but we have not taken a trip to the nursery yet because... well... you know. instead, we ordered seedlings from a new-to-us supplier. they should be delivered in time for the customary Victoria Day start of the gardening season in these parts, which is the eighteenth of May this time around. i will never get used to having to wait this late in the year to plant anything outdoors. such an odd country this is. 

speaking of the balcony garden project, the animator started removing the covers from the containers, and he was greeted with the first fern fronds, poised to unfurl any day now. it is so heartening to be reminded that life carries on. 

you can almost feel that tension before those leaves open up.

he has some wacky plan brewing to squirrel-proof this year's garden, but i honestly stopped listening after "i can get some two-by-fours...", because i already know that nothing good ever comes after that. 

and speaking of squirrels...

i was transferring some photos from my camera one recent evening, when i noticed a strange new thing on the big maple tree. i had been trying—but mostly failing—to get a shot of a bird that was hopping from branch-to-branch, so this odd bulge had escaped my attention earlier that day. 

me: what the...?

him: what do you think it is?

me: don't know. could be some kind of mushroom and the cap hasn't opened up yet.

then we spent a minute or two joking that we might have to harvest it if the test-run-apocalypse gets worse. 

me: you do know that most of the mushrooms you stumble upon in the wild will probably kill you, right?

him: if it gets bad enough that we need to climb a massive tree to get one mushroom, we're probably gonna die anyway. we might as well have something interesting for our last meal. 

me: true.

it was my intention to give this strange new thing a closer look the next day, but it was gone by the time i got out of bed to feed the cats.

me: maybe the squirrels ate it.

him: good. i hope they die, then they can't ruin my garden again this year.

not gonna lie... i agree one-hundred-percent with that sentiment. 

so, i went back to the original image and zoomed in on that small section, and just stared at it for a while, trying to figure out what it was. then the old proverbial light bulb went on in my head. if you squint a bit, you will note that the bottom-right section of the bulge appears to have been chewed away, reveling a white substance on the inside, and that there is an interesting series of lines on the outer surface. that last part was the biggest clue.

me: i know that it is!

him: what?

then i showed him this... and we just shook our heads. those bloody squirrels!