Some Like It Hot

Home Depot is doing well these days. Macy's isn't. At least that's the story in yesterday's NYT. And I can understand why. But not in my household. My wife might not be going to Macy's, but there are enough Macy's boxes that show up at the door due to online shopping that I'm a little surprised to hear Macy's might be ailing. The weak mall traffic is understandable.

One thing you can say about Home Depot, once you get to know where everything is you don't get intimidated by a building that could hide a few 767s in Aisle 12 alone.

But poor Arthur Blank, founding owner of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons who paced the sidelines and the 4th quarter wound down and watched Tom Brady take the Super Bowl away from the Falcons in 2017 in overtime. It wasn't his fault. I hope he's gotten over it. His stores are great.

We're been to the Syosset Home Depot so often that we even know where they keep the bird seed. There are enough people in orange aprons to help you, but at this point we know where things are. They do sometimes move things and we have to ask, but they're always helpful. One of the perks of the store.

When there is snow on the ground, like there still is now, we set out a plate of bird seed on the covered picnic table on the patio and let the party begin. Naturally, squirrels get involved, but they are one of God's creatures, despite the fact that no one is ever going to report a squirrel sighting on the Internet and have a flood of people descend on Central Park. One grey squirrel looks like any other grey squirrel.

We used to sling a bird feeder over a maple tree branch, but the tree is gone now. And when we did, the squirrels couldn't reach the feeder, but plenty of birds did. We kept the feeder filled in all seasons, but it got to be too much. The birds quickly emptied the sucker, and the droppings started unwanted growth on the grass. We gave up on the feeder when the tree came down.

But it's easy to put a plateful of seed out there and watch the mocking birds, sparrows, cardinals and blue jays fly in for a snack. Of course some squirrels also are attracted, but they co-exist. Squirrels do not attack birds.

Hope Depot offers selections. Unit price 10 lbs. of Pennington bird seed vs. 5 lbs. of Wagner's, and it's easy to see Wagner's is twice the price. Pourquoi!

Well, the label on the Wagner's promises that squirrels won't eat it. There's red pepper in it, and they'll stay away. The bag of Wagner's looks like trail mix. There are so many different particles in there that I can't tell which one is the repellant. And wouldn't the squirrels just nibble around it? Okay, let's try it.

The first customers were squirrels. And not at all hesitant on eating what they wanted. My wife and I theorized that the squirrels were from Mexico, probably illegals, and got here with their spice craving palates. Leave them be.

But the birds have continued to come as well. I thought these guys went to Florida for the winter, but I guess not. The only birds that seems to be missing that we usually see are orioles and robins. Maybe they go to Florida and watch baseball training camps.

Since we bought two bags of the alleged squirrel repellant seed, we won't need to be going back anytime soon. There won't be much more snow, and what's there will melt away soon.

Of course it's silly to think we've got Mexican squirrels. In the Northeast, we're just about as far away form Mexico as you can get and still be in the United States.

And anyway, Biden is president now, and all people and animals from Mexico are welcome. Even I'm sure squirrels who eat hot seed.

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