The skunk makes us miss the days of the gopher

My dear wife Karen let out Ellie B in the backyard for a few minutes just when the sun was setting Monday night. I heard the bark, the frantic one, the I’ve-got-an-animal-bothering-me pitch. I heard Karen calling my name with an equal amount of panic. I smelled the hint of trouble as I saw my…

This time Good Neighbor Tim’s got the butterfly

By mid-July, I’d hoped to be able to proudly show you the purple blossoms on my most mature of butterfly bushes in the backyard garden of my dear wife Karen and I at our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. Yes, I can, but not in the striking manner in years past. Here’s…

A butterfly can’t always wait for a garden

I’d say on this Sixth of July that our backyard butterfly garden in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood is doing quite nicely. The three along the back fence, the purple eldest at left, the center white lady transplanted from my sister Frannie’s garden on Long Island, and the great multi-colored baby at right, are…

Gopher gone, we have a lovesick dog

As we settle into the second day full day of the separation of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and the backyard gopher, the sniffing and scratching continues. And my beloved 3 1/2-year-old rescue mutt looks up at me with puppy dog eyes again and seems to say: Where did my furry friend go? On Saturday,…

Bye gopher, don’t come back now, ya’ hear

Broccoli, cantaloupe and watermelon. The Syracuse-based animal control guy knew his gopher bait. Within three hours of our phone conversation today, our backyard nemesis wandered into our humane trap, and the June nightmare, the battle of wits, the terrorization of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle, was over. The furry was stuck inside the bars and…

We gotta get rid of this gopher now

All those cute and funny names you offered for the backyard gopher my dear wife Karen have been attempting to lure into our humane trap so I can drive it away to a better life? I refuse to call it by a single one of them. I’m in no mood for cute, nor funny. X%$&@?!%^#…

It’s time to name our teasing backyard gopher

The saga of the backyard gopher, Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and I continues. Call it Chapter Too Many. When my dear wife Karen and I returned from a full and satisfying day of activities on the first day of summer yesterday — a 3-year-old’s birthday party, our annual trip to the Parade of Homes…