Squirrels

Morning

Today we are tring something different. We have a squirrel that lives in a tree next to the house next door to us, and since July when I moved here, we have been feeding her peanuts and fruit and stuff. For the last few weeks we have been giving her hazelnuts, and then almonds. Only because they had gone stale and we couldn't eat them, but she loves them. Her name is Samanatha, and yes she comes when she is called LOL!. But anyway, we bought her some sunflower seeds yesterday, so today I put some out for her to eat. I also put almonds incase she didn't like the sunflower seeds, just a few, so we will see. She had come down to eat them, but something scared her off, I don't know what as there was nothing around, but she ran off. She will be back later I am sure, no squirrel will leave nuts lying around uneaten at this time of year. I am a little surprised to see her out there today, as it is -14C, cold for little furry animals, but I guess she is used to it.

We also have a rabbit that lives somewhere near us. We know because there are tracks in the snow. She has made a path across the lawn from under our deck to the back of the garden, and then one directly across the lawn to the side path which takes her to the front of the house, where she has gone under the car. The car is parked up for winter, covered in a blanket, and now a few inches of snow too. So she is safe under there. I just have to remember to check that she isn't in the engine, or hasn't created a nest in the engine, when I start the car up again in the spring.

Why is the car parked up for winter? Well you see, I can't drive it, legally, in this country until I am a landed immigrant, so the car just sits, behind a bush, under the snow, waiting. Which brings me to another annoyance. Why does it take so long to immigrate into a country? I mean, either you are suitable or you aren't! And the number of forms and evidence that you have to supply them (they don't even have to do any leg work!) means that they should be able to tell pretty quickly whether or not you are suitable! But they don't even let you know where you are in the process! You fill out all the paperwork and send it in, and then you hear nothing. Nothing. Not even a peep, after you get the letter saying, yes we got your application. So we have no idea how much longer we have to wait. No idea if the application fell down the back of someone's filing cabinet, whether it is even in a "to do" pile on someone's desk. They used to have a web site that told you how far behind they were on processing the forms, but they took it down. I guess because they were so far behind. But FFS why don't they take on more people? Or is there only one person making the final decision? My wife is Canadian, so they should be saying, ok this one is ok, and stamp the papers and send them back, but no, they have to do background checks, criminal history checks etc. For every address you have ever lived at! Crazy. A friend of mine, who is German, told me recently that it took him 6 months to immigrate 25 years ago, it seems that things haven't changed. And yet the Canadian Government recently made it easier for people to pass the test which decides if they are eligible to immigrate here! Which presumably means they want more people to come in to the country, especially to the less popular areas, like Manitoba. I mean face it, who wants to come to live here? It is always snowing! LOL That isn't true BTW, but is a common misconception. But I digress. The point is, they are encouraging people to try to move here, and yet the amount of time it is taking to process each application is getting longer and longer! It is still a damned site easier to move here than to the US, but even so.

So here I sit, with little else to do but watch a squirrel eating nuts with a backdrop of snow covered trees and bushes. Just as well it is a great place to live, because I can see how frustrating it would be to be living somewhere where you couldn't work, that wasn't a great place to be even though you can't actually do anything.

Samantha came back and ate the rest of the almonds, and then a few of the sunflower seeds, but she has left a small pile of them. I wonder if she will be back later? I will sit here playing patience and watching out for her. I will think about having a shower too, and then I have to put up some coat hooks and clean the floor. It is all go ;)

Oh and that other thing I was going to rant on about turned out to be old news, so I decided to let it go for now ;)