Animal Culprits

So, we caught the culprit of all our recent "plant nibblings" in action. Turns out what we thought was a bunch of birds coming and nibbling off the leaves, stems and buds off our remaining deck garden is actually this squirrel (and maybe a couple others). I was able to snap this photo of him/her just before it hopped into one of our trough planters and began nibbling. Just was I was trying to get a shot of it red-handed, Basil caught wind of what was happened and barked this little guy away!

Speaking of Basil, he seems to have happily adapted to a new habitat:

Mary and I haven't been ones to let Basil up on the furniture, but it's been an unspoken agreement between the 3 of us that he gets up on this couch when we leave the house. We've always just figured if all he is doing is hopping up there and sleeping while we are away — then we are completely fine with that. Everytime we would return home, he'd sleepily hop down off the couch before we got in the door and wouldn't get back up on the couch until the next time we left.

Well more recently, it's been like this couch in the front room is too tempting or something for him. Mary and I will be in the kitchen on our computers then all of a sudden we look up to realize he's been in there on that couch lounging for the past 20 minutes. He'll look up at us with this clueless face as to say "What? I'm on the couch? Oh, how did this happen? Are you cool with it or should I get down?"

Needless to say, we've caved. You have to admit, he does look pretty regal and cute up on that couch. To clarify, this is the only piece of furniture he is allowed on and we never join him there — we know, we're total pushovers.