💥Back Yard Bullies: SCREAMING Squirrel vs. FURIOUS Jay!💥

Such drama in the back yard! I had to take down all the feeders after the back yard bear kept crashing the place, but finally relented, and when I put everything back up, we were soon overrun with wildlife. I was delighted to see a Steller's jay after a very long absence - you hear them before they see them, as they screech and screech, then flap down and bob around for seeds. While they're among my favorite birds, they aren't very bright and can't seem to navigate to get up to the feeders, though they flap around looking ungainly while they attempt to hook on somewhere. In this video I happened to be outside with the camera when a small war broke out. The jay was screeching, and a squirrel was snarling back at him. It went back and forth for  a while, and must have been a territorial thing because the jay finally flew over to the tree where the squirrel was hunching and flapping its tail and swearing in squirrel. It ended in a draw in which the jay took off, but soon reappeared when the squirrel frisked off to another tree.

Burnt-out Bombsite: What Prince Harry did to his Family

JAN MOIR: Harry may be coming home, but there's a burnt out bombsite where his family used to be

By JAN MOIR FOR THE DAILY MAIL
UPDATED: 03:49 EDT, 25 August 2023s

Royal-watchers spotted a cloud of black smoke rising over assorted palaces and castles this week, part of a sad new ritual called the Bonfire of the Olive Branches. For when it comes to relations between the Royal Family and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, we're looking at a burnt-out bombsite where a family used to be.

Relations are at rock bottom, clemency is in the deep freeze. The outstretched hand has been withdrawn and the peace pipe has been doused with a thousand duchessy tears. It is over.

In September, Prince Harry will visit the UK to attend an awards ceremony for the WellChild charity on the day before the anniversary of the Queen's death. But there are no plans to meet his father or his brother. Apparently, he is not even going to the private family dinner at Windsor to remember Elizabeth II.

He then goes on to Germany for the Invictus Games, where his wife will fly out to join him.

The message from Meghan couldn't be clearer. She is never going to set foot in the grey, cake-filled, miserable UK again if she can possibly help it.

Perhaps being forbidden to attend the Queen's deathbed at Balmoral — to shed light, to empower, to recommend a turmeric cleanse and some yoga stretches to the woman she never knew as Gan-Gan — was the last straw. And if there is a role for her as wifely appeaser to help heal the rift between her husband and his family, she has chosen to avoid that, too. As is her right.

But there is a puzzling disconnect about all this bitter friction.

The Duke and Duchess keep embracing big themes such as reconciliation and family. They talk earnestly of healing, humanity and hope but, somehow, never apply these messages to themselves and their relationships with their families, which are as toxic as a giant hogweed swamp.

Consider that poor Thomas Markle, living alone in a dusty Mexican border city just 250 miles south of Montecito, has yet to meet his grandchildren. It also seems unlikely that King Charles will ever get a second chance to meet Lilibet, his granddaughter. And that is terribly sad.

I note that the Duchess accompanied the Duke to the WellChild Awards in 2018 and 2019 but is not attending this year. A shame, for it is a moving ceremony held to celebrate the achievements and resilience of children with severe illness and the families who look after them.

That first year, the Duchess was pregnant with her first child, Archie — it had yet to be announced to the public — and the Duke paid tribute to her on stage.

The following year, he broke down during his speech at the same event, saying: 'It pulls at my heartstrings in a way I could never have understood until I had a child of my own.'

He is so right. When it works properly, family is everything. Family is your home port, the wind beneath your wings. Family is more than name-napping your grandmother's nickname for your own child. Family is not a seized opportunity to build a business on a royal name and a heritage you like to denigrate when it suits.

Family is not an ermine-edged cloak under which you can indulge your narcissism disguised as altruism. Family is putting in the hard yards, apologising when you have gone wrong and loving each other despite it all. Dare I even mention the word respect?

It has been seven years since Harry met Meghan. It is five years since they married, three years since they stepped down as royals, two years since their infamous interview with Oprah, one year since the Queen died.

In this time, Harry has cratered his existence as he knew it and lost the only father and brother he will ever know. In elevating his and Meghan's joint status and virtue by ruthlessly tearing down the legacy and reputation of the Windsors, he has reached this bleak point of no return.

Prince Harry is coming home, but there is nowhere for him to go. His involvement in the Invictus Games and charities such as WellChild is the very best of him. But surely the day will soon dawn when he comes to regret losing what he says he prizes the most: his family.

💥ZOOM-ZOOM! Classic Car Cruise in Port Coquitlam!💥

This year it was hair-raising, and now we're wondering whether we want to do it again. Not only was the air acrid with forest fire smoke (which made the sun glow red, and was so thickly obscured you could shoot right into it), but we had to endure dense vapors of exhaust, the stench of burnt rubber on the road, and a near-fatal screech-around wherein a driver nearly lost control and killed us all. One guy's engine caught fire and brought the whole thing to a screeching halt, but I was so astonished I didn't even get a shot of it. But you can hear me talking anxiously to the lady next to me about what the HELLLL was going on. Though we've done the car show for years, I think it's just about the end of it for us. It's the same cars every year, and since we've been doing this since 2015 - . Well. In this case, we're lucky to have survived intact, and avoided choking to death on exhaust fumes, burnt rubber, engine smoke and forest fire haze. 

💥CARS with TEETH! (handmade animation)💥

One of my favorite handmade animations. Love the music, too. 

🙄SILLY CAT! He's Scared of the Garage (so why does he want to go in ther...

Because Bentley. 

The '62 Lark!

 

The '62 Lark! I remember this commercial vividly, and have been trying to find it for years. Here it is, in pristine condition, probably better than when I saw it in 1962 when I was eight. Why would I remember such a thing? Swings.

Beautiful blonde bus driver

My beautiful blonde ace-reporter daughter Shannon Paterson gets to drive a bus! I think she preferred another story where she got to drive a Lamborghini.

Bentley was SUCH a good boi!

 

Our beloved Bentley was SUCH a good boi at the vet's today! It was completely different from all his other experiences, where he'd be terrified and would meow pitifully through the whole examination. Our old clinic closed permanently, perhaps because the facilities were just too primitive by today's standards (one big loud dog-smelling waiting area with barks, howls, jumping around, etc. while Bentley, who has an exquisite sense of smell, would cower in the back of his carrier).

Well, that clinic was closed, so I began to look around for something else close by (he hates those car rides!). I found a local clinic, newly-built, that literally has TWO clinics: one for cats and one for dogs. The cat clinic even has a separate entrance! I noticed Bentley stopped his pitiful meowing when we came in, and even came out of the carrier without trauma. He sniffed around and got used to the place while the vet took his history from  us. She was lovely, obviously loved cats, felt him all over and told us what we had so hoped to hear - at nine years old, he's pretty much in perfect health. He has even lost a little weight from his very large frame. 

Best of all was the way the clinic understood cats and their particular needs, their hypersensitivity and how they can be intimidated by larger, louder, smellier animals. Bentley was attacked and ripped up quite badly by a dog before we adopted him, so naturally his fears are even greater. But it all went so smoothly, it only cost $100.00, and I have no qualms about taking him back there if, God forbid, anything happens with his health

He was SUCH a good boi! Even better, when we got home he actually crawled back into his carrier and loafed for a while. Now THAT is a first. 

💗🌞My Big Fat Brown Duck has NINE BABIES!🌞💗

I've been following this duck for months now, and it always stood out from the flock due to its immense size and gorgeous chocolate-brown colour. Then it disappeared for quite a while, only to resurface with NINE baby ducklings! This was unlike any brood I'd ever seen before, because they were several different colours, from mottled-brown to dark brown with a yellow breast, to solid yellow. This tends to say they're hybrids, meaning My Big Fat Brown Duck must have mated with a mallard drake. I want to follow the development of this brood, from newly-hatched (these guys were likely only a week or so old) to maturity. This was one of the more magical finds on the shores of Lake LaFarge, which we've nicknamed The Duck Park. I believe this duck is a khaki Campbell, a large, meaty breed raised for human consumption. Our duck got out of there just in time to avoid being on someone's dinner plate.

Popcat sings Rasputin (Full song)

Where has this song been all my life? It combines my three greatest passions: disco, Rasputin and cats! All of Russian history in a mere 3 minutes. With cats!

🌸Pressed Flowers Found in 46-year-old Book!🌺

This was an absolutely magical experience. When I opened a copy of The Thorn Birds that I'd bought on Amazon for a couple of bucks, I found pressed flowers from someone's garden, don't know where, don't know when. They were so well-preserved I could still see the colors in the blossoms. I put them between two panes of glass in a frame, but rediscovered them years later and reframed them with a background, which displays them much more clearly. It's one of those mysteries that could only come about through the internet.

Harry and Meghan. . . don't tell me they're splitting up!

  

JAN MOIR: I’m relieved Harry and Meghan’s carousel of caressing has halted. But it does make me fear for them…

By Jan Moir for the Daily Mail

Updated: 16:02 EDT, 3 August 2023

Can all be well down in the fragrant dell of Montecito? I wonder. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have made their first public appearance together in months, no doubt hoping to silence increasing speculation about the state of their marriage, their future together and their mutual career as saviours of the world — or whatever it is that they do out there in their fantasyland of compassion and creative activations.

The couple were filmed sitting together on a love seat in the sun-dappled garden of their Californian home as they made congratulatory phone calls to the winners of a grant for young entrepreneurs developing 'responsibly technology'. If this show of togetherness was supposed to quash rumours, it had the opposite effect on me.

Was it wrong to sense an underlying tension and a lack of interaction between the duke and duchess? It was certainly noticeable that the couple didn’t look at each other at all. Well, Harry gazed at Meghan, but she kept her eyes down and never looked at him, not once. At no point did their eyes meet, and no affectionate gazes were exchanged.

Some might think this is a loaded observation about what is only a brief promotional clip, but this is Harry and Meghan we are talking about. Since day one, their every public appearance has been characterised by a glutinous show of overt affection. They hold hands, they constantly pat, touch, clutch and comfort–rub each other like two high-net-worth meerkats enjoying a grooming session.

They delight in showing the world their delight in each other, even if that delight is not always entirely reciprocated in a wholly delightful way.

And whether on Oprah or on a palace balcony, their eye contact is invariably intense and locked on, like radar gunsights. Indeed, Meghan often makes a point of gazing at Harry with the kind of molten adoration you’d expect from a renaissance nun who has just seen a vision of God in a stained-glass window.

But not this time, baby. In their tonal summer neutrals and fixed grins, there was a faint undertow of awkwardness and distance that we haven’t seen before.

I want to be honest. I’m rather grateful for any new briskness in their public relationship. There have been too many moments in the past when Harry and Meghan’s adolescent pawings and moony spoony behaviour has made even an old romantic like me feel the urge to purge into the nearest sick bag. Even if one can appreciate how these relentless, open displays of tenderness had a purpose and were powerful in establishing the Sussex identity on a global stage.

After all, Harry and Meghan built their brand on love; on being the heroic, loved–up couple who fled from the oppression of wealth, privilege and monarchy to build a brave new world built on the very same wealth, privilege and monarchy they had crossed an ocean to escape. And if the course of their true love does not run smooth, where does that leave them?

Tomorrow is Meghan’s 42nd birthday, and I wonder what she will be reflecting upon as she blows out her candles in California. Perhaps she will exult in her triumphant exit from a cruel and wicked British institution which forced her to wear beige, denied her first choice of tiara and wasn’t keen on hugs, the utter b****rds.

Perhaps her mind will turn once more to that momentous New York night in May, when the infamous ‘near-catastrophic car chase’ resulted in an utterly catastrophic negative shift in public perception of the Sussexes.

Overnight they went from being seen as compassion crusaders to deluded fools, mockingly exposed as a couple overinvested in their own importance and whirling around inside a tornado of unjustifiable paranoia. It was a seminal moment which resulted in more bad publicity, including cancelled broadcasting projects and being called ‘grifters’ by a Spotify executive.

Strong marriages can survive worse, but it is becoming clear that the pressure is on for the Sussexes, who have squandered much of their initial commercial goodwill in Hollywood and somehow managed to diminish their own prestige to boot.

The popular narrative about their relationship has always depicted Harry as the poor husband, forced to obey the demands of his ambitious wife — but being married to a privacy–obsessed monomaniac like him is surely no picnic, either. On that fateful night in New York, stuck in the back of a taxi in her pretty gold dress, Meghan’s duchess life didn’t look like much fun at all.

Of course, maybe all this speculation is wrong-headed and unfair. Maybe too much is being made of a short film clip that is supposed to be a celebration of good works. Yet after seven years of behaving like two handsy old hams overacting in a royal romcom set in a petting farm, Harry and Meghan can’t blame puzzled viewers for fearing the worst when the carousel of caressing suddenly stops.

How to Spend Too Much on your Trolls. . .

 

(This listing on eBay is for a set of troll shoes and sunglasses. In Canadian dollars, they cost $123.00. Hey, even I don't spend that much on my trolls!)

TROLL DOLL SHOES AND GLASSES FOR YOUR 2 3/4" - 3" DAM OR SCANDIA TROLL DOLL

Condition:

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Price:

US $75.00

ApproximatelyC $99.26

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