What's Going On Around Here..and such

Some of you were worried about my squirrels - since I posted the last post with a cute little squirrel hiding in a bird house.Well I wanted to share a cute little story so you would know that the little guy is ok, well either him or a sibling or Momma. This could be Momma since she seemed a bit bigger than the other little guys.
Anyway on with the story:  So yesterday morning I was working out in the yard. After I had done a fair amount of work- I went to my porch for a rest. As I sat there I looked up - and saw this:

The squirrel seemed to be talking to me - made a few noises and moved its tail around. I told her she was free to eat(the squirrel feeder is just on the side of that tree below where she was sitting). I told her I was tired and needed a break but she could eat.

She continued to sit there and I got busy on my cell phone checking out e-mails and such. I looked up and there she was. What is so cool about this is that this feeder is like less than 10 feet away from the porch and where I was sitting.

 

 I really enjoyed watching her eat and the company, even though she was quiet. And boy did she eat. After a while I had to tell her - Ok - I have have a long enough break - I really need to get busy.

As I got up to walk away she ran up the tree a bit - but it wasn't long before she was back again. I love my squirrels!

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I have another cute story to share. So the day before I had been in my back yard weed eating when ALL of a SUDDEN I moved my weed eater over this little guy:

And he startled me! I would say he was about 7-8 inches long. Really a pretty lizard.

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And I also have a question for you all:

What kind of tree is this:

A couple of years ago we had a really rough summer - and we went through a really bad drought.In fact, we are still trying to recover from the drought- yesterday afternoon I noticed some 1/2 - 1 inch cracks in our yard in the back yard. Last night we got at least a couple of inches of rain (along with 10 tornadoes in the metroplex) And a couple of them were a little too close for comfort. With one of the tornadoes - many homes were destroyed and at least 6 people died. There was a tornado that at one point turned like it was going to come towards us - this tornado was a BIG one - even the news reporter guy was a bit overwhelmed with how big it was and kept saying it was huge  - couldn't even hardly get any other information out of him until he said Huge at least several different times. Yep- one mile wide is a HUGE tornado.

Anyway back to topic - we have lost several trees over the past 2 years from that drought and still being in a drought even though we have been getting rain - we were SO far behind it has been hard on the earth and all to get caught back up. Yesterday we had to cut down another dead tree - an know of 2 others in our yard that are going to have to be cut down. So in the middle of dead trees - it was refreshing to find this tree and its delicate feeling leaves. Just hoping someone will recognize the leaves and be able to tell me what kind of tree it is

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Ok- one more bit of new- this goes to show how mild this past month has been compared to years past. We got our electric bill today- it was the cheapest it has been since 2005. I probably have record of further back than that - I just went through two spirals worth of information. I was thrilled to see that the bill was lower. The closest month was still $13.00 more than this month. We continue to have the house opened up as much as possible and hope for our bill to be cheaper than the past again next year.

Ok so I think I have rambled on long enough. I need to get other things done. I hope you all have a great day! :O)