2024, animals, Family, Food, home, Nature

Squirrely Exercising

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We feed the squirrels.  We started out to feed just the birds; I’m not even remotely worried about squirrels not being able to fend for themselves.  But as anyone who has tried to feed birds without feeding squirrels will tell you – get over yourself.  We have one feeder that has things like corn and peanuts and suet.  The other feeders offer teeny bits that appeal to birds and have itty bitty openings that the squirrels can’t get into.  The last feeder holds a block of seed and meal worms but is laced with some kind of hot sauce.  Apparently birds aren’t bothered by capsaicin while squirrels are repelled it.  It seems to be doing the job as the squirrels ignore it completely and the birds seem to enjoy it.

Of course, having squirrels on the feeders and on the ground under the feeders makes Guinevere insane.  When you open the back porch door she can get to the feeders in about a nanosecond.  She has never gotten a squirrel although there is one who seems to go out of its way to mosey along to the tree with just a hairs breath from getting gnawed by the dog. 

I have to admit that sometimes I egg Guinevere on.  “Go get `em Tiger” is the most used phrase although sometimes I mix it up.  I don’t actually want her to get a squirrel and I’m very sure that my giving her positive feedback isn’t increasing her speed but I do like to think I’m tricking her into getting a little more exercise. 

I only think like this because I have to trick MYSELF into getting more exercise.  I’m just not crazy about organized exercise, so I disguise it as something else.  Yardwork is the biggie and walking the dog is good too – I don’t even think about these as exercise.  I’ve taken over trash/recycling duty from YA the last year as this is something that needs doing and the long driveway on the hill is some good movement.  I’ve even taken to bringing up the neighbors cans (they keep their cans next to their back door which is right off my driveway).  Extra trips and it’s a neighborly thing to do.  If science actually came up with a pill to replace exercise, the neighbors would probably be on their own every Thursday!

Until I figure out a way to make exercise my friend, I guess I’ll be tricking the dog into chasing after all the teenage mutant ninja squirrels in the back.

Are you and exercise friends?  How do you manage it???

36 thoughts on “Squirrely Exercising”

  1. atomic habits by james clear is the answer

    lots of stuff can be plugged in by using his system

    and it works

    vinnie and nala do love chasing critters in their fenced kingdom and catch their prey on occasion most recently a chipmunk. It’s pretty exciting to chase your target under the deck then move back and forth nose to the ground location the critters move in the unreachable sanctuary. Occasionally you can experience a special needs chipmunk who hides in a bush or behind a pot and then the chase is on. They celebrated their 12th year of adoption the other day so their arthritis slow the chase down but not entirely eliminates it. They don’t know they’re old because I havnt told them.
    it works on me too. Only when I am reminded do I have to acknowledge my aging joints and make excuses for my less than gazelle like moves in current wandering

    go vs

    go get em

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  2. Unless something interferes, we try to start each day with a walk of 2-4 miles. Other walking in the normal course of our activities adds another mile or two. The YWCA, where we walk in bad weather offers exercise classes for seniors but I can’t see myself doing that. For one thing, it’s way too loud. I prefer to just use the machines.

    I put out seed—mostly black sunflower seed—in the winter for the birds/squirrels but taper off when spring comes and presumably other foods are available. By the end of winter there is a pile of discarded seed shells that I have to shovel away and once I have done that I am reluctant to put more seeds out.

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  3. Gardening is my exercise. Husband walks the dog several times a day. I have PT exercises for sciatica that I loathe, and which do not seem to be helping so I am going back to my Physical Therapist for more help.

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  4. One of the high schools near Fargo has as its mascot The Squirrels, The Central Cass Squirrels.

    My father loved feeding squirrels and did so until the ladies in their condo association objected. He had a favorite squirrel that would climb up his shoulder. He was so worried the squirrel would starve or get injured when he had to stop feeding him that he took him to my uncle’s farm and set him loose in a grove of trees near the corn cribs.

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  5. We’re best of friends. I can’t imagine not moving vigorously in some form or another almost every day. Long ago, I made health and physical fitness a top priority and “Just do it.”

    I walk the golf course in season, bike or walk on other nice days. My usual walk is 4 miles at a 4 mph pace. I weight train twice a week and have done so for 40 years. Those of you who have seen me know that I don’t do it to look like Ahhh-nold. 🙂 Just to maintain muscle tone, flexibilty, and a basic strength level. I XC ski and ice skate in the winter, or hit the aerobic machines in bad weather–or when there’s no snow or ice like last winter! *SOB* Didn’t ski once and only skated twice on marginal outdoor ice.

    Why? My wife was a nurse and then worked in group health insurance administration for her entire career. She knows the health care system better than almost anyone. Her advice: Stay out of the health care system! It’s expensive, inefficient, and not designed to keep you healthy. It’s designed to cure the ailments you get from an unhealthy lifestyle.

    So I stay out of the healthcare system as much as possible.

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP**

    Hopkins Mainstreet Day tomorrow, folks! Going to be perfect weather and a huge crowd expected. They’ve even expanded the footprint to include more vendors. Close to 200 selling everything you can imagine. And if you’re not looking to buy much if anything, the people watching fun is second to none. Should be thousands of people attending but it’s still pretty easy to find a parking space within a block or two because of all the lots near Main Street.

    I’ll be there of course selling my books and bragging especially hard about “Little Mountain, Big Trouble,” which is a FINALIST (one of three) for the Midwest Independent Publishers Association (MIPA) Midwest Book Award. Easily the most prestigious award any of my books have been considered for because this award has been around since 1989–wayyy before the explosion in self-publishing and the massive number of books published and award programs began in the 2000s and 2010s.

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  6. Like Chris, I have made health and fitness a priority. “If you stop moving, you stop moving”. I walk between 2 and 4 miles nearly every day (at 3 miles per hour – I am barely over 5′ and have a short stride). I don’t go to a gym but have created an exercise routine that I do daily at home. It is designed mostly for flexibility and strength. Even during my recent 9 weeks of right leg non-weight bearing, I did as many of my exercises/stretches as possible. Another reason for my daily routine is being diagnosed with osteoporosis about 8 years ago – need to “stress” my bones in order to keep them healthier. In the warm weather months I get out kayaking as much as possible, do a lot of yardwork (weeding) at my sister’s house, and occasionally walk nine holes of golf.

    After 34 years of hospital nursing, I agree wholeheartedly about staying out of the health care system as much as possible. Sometimes it is necessary due to the effects of aging or due to accidents – such as my recent cataract surgery (with multifocal lenses that got me out of glasses – yay!) and my fractured ankle. But maintaining a healthy lifestyle is much less expensive than health care.

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      1. Another part of a healthy lifestyle, of course, is eating healthy. I do my best to stay away from processed food and unhealthy snacks but, of course, do give in to temptation a bit too often.

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        1. Well, yeah! 🙂 That’s the second best reason to stay healthy with exercise and mostly good-for-you food: to treat yourself to ice cream or doughnuts or a cheeseburger once in a while.

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        1. My grandparents first Schipperke was Ricky and he was an escape artist. And once he got out the door, he was GONE. Usually came home within the hour but you could never catch him!

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  9. Our Cesky Terrier reminds Husband quite frequently that if it were not for daily dog walks, Husband’s diabetes wouldn’t be nearly as well controlled as it is, and doesn’t he deserve an extra dog treat?

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  11. Some years back, tempted by a reduction in health insurance premiums if we would wear pedometers and report to a website, we began walking. Eventually I figured out that we were spending lots of hours and effort for comparatively little money, but I was hooked.

    For a while we did the 10,000 steps a day thing, until I learned that the number comes not from any medical science, but from how well the phrase for 10,000 steps rolls off of one’s tongue in Japanese (it works in Taiwanese, too.)

    So, I still walk, but not like some people I see at the indoor track, who are “getting their heart rate up”. I just walk because I feel better when I’m limber. The track is 1500 steps from home, so I walk over, do about 3000 while there, then walk home. That’s enough for a day.

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    1. I remember the song but never had to exercise to it. Robert Preston must have really been hard up to do this, although I see it was commissioned by the Presidential Council on Fitness.

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  14. I really need to do more walking – I have a yoga routine, and now added PT moves, and at least weekly t’ai chi, but the regular walking would do me well, and I only get there 2-3 times a week…

    There ARE some things I’ll do gladly – one is folk dancing (or was, till my back/hip ailment) – I hope to get back to that.

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  15. Better Late than Never,

    I love that header picture.

    Exercise is my friend. I like to move. VS, I found that combining audiobooks with walking (either treadmill or outside) got me hooked on exercising regularly. It became my motivator, especially when there is a narrator that is especially skilled and fun to listen to. Heading outside or to the gym treadmill with a good book is enjoyable to me. Unfortunately, a narrator who is unpleasant or annoying to hear is the opposite–really unmotivating.

    This morning I had Water Aerobics at the gym. This has been incredibly helpful to me, especially because I have had bursitis in my left hip. That limited my treadmill use. But Water Aerobics is non-weight-bearing so it does not exacerbate it. Then I came home and worked in the garden for a bit and got my soaker hoses installed. This evening I am so darned tired!

    We just had a thunder storm. It was a new phenomenon to Phoebe. Every time it rumbled she had a spasm of barking trying to scare it away. She was so earnest about it, keeping us safe.

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      1. Guinevere is the strangest dog. She is afraid of almost everything (pillows, sudden movements, the cat, the vacuum…. on and on) but she is NOT afraid of thunderstorms or fireworks. Go figure.

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