Delayed Friday Shoot out & Critters comin' and goin' in Haywood County

I missed last Friday's Shoot out (Outdoor food) - I'd planned to get creative with food in the outdoors, but time ran away from me. So, instead, I snapped some photos of "critter food" or the chain of food, etc. Spider food, squirrel and bird food, people catching their own food, bee and butterfly food, etc.

We have wild critters here on the mountain: some wilder than others; some dangerous, some not so. We have squirrel feeders and bird feeders hanging round or tacked to the tree. We're perched here, so it's as if we live in a tree house in a way. In the morning, the little red squirrels wait for us to come put sunflower seeds in the feeders. We can hear their feet flappity flap stomp across the roof as they come running and no sooner do we scoop the seeds in than the little squirrels hop on and eat. We don't try to make them pets; we don't try to touch them, but they expect us to feed them now I guess...huhn. At night, the flying squirrels with their high-pitched squeaking come calling. When I went out to take in the bird feeder (we don't want bears coming round to get the seed), those flying squirrels just sit there looking at me with their big ole eyes - I reach out my hand thinking they'll fly away and still they sit! I have to take down the feeder before they go sailing off to a tree branch. I always leave some on the railing for them, and there's the squirrel feeders that stay there, as they're nailed to the tree.

We've heard the bobcat scream (and I saw one run up the back of our place), once I thought I saw a panther and so did my neighbor, but, who knows, there's been some bear sightings, there's coons that come calling at night, too and they fight over the sunflower seeds in the squirrel feeder, there's wild turkey and deer and all manner of critters. I worry about the critters because of development -- I am sorry to say I've grown a big kind of hatred for some of the developers, particularly those who come from out of state, ruin the mountain, and then leave with their pockets lined with cash - out of their site/sight, out of their mind, not in their backyard--but don't get me started there.

Sometimes I see the crippled critters and I feel bad for them, but they make their way the best they can and some of them survive and I suppose some do not as I only see them a season and then they are gone---lessen they found another place to be.

The hummingbirds come calling, too -- and one of them is aggressive and drives off the others.

There's one critter that calls at night and I can't figure out what it is. It's a lonesome sound, but beautiful.

Once I thought I heard a wolf's howl, but am never sure whether it was just me howling out my pleasure at living in these ancient mountains - some of the oldest mountains in the world - the most beautiful place, my Home here in Haywood County.