Profligate Blue Jay

     Regarding my Saturday comments about the jay's hoovering up all the bird seed:   After we had examined the evidence more closely, dw and I realized the jay wasn't really eating all the food.  On the contrary, it really liked the sunflower seeds so it was flinging everything off the feeder except what it wanted to eat.  It would empty the feeder in a day or day and a half.  The last time he emptied it, I refilled with a different kind of seeds (no sunflowers) and now he still roots around a bit with some flinging but not nearly as much.  --- The east side feeder still has the seed mix with sunflowers, but the jay can't perch on that one so comfortably so it just eats a bit and leaves.  Humans 1, Jay 0.  As a blue jay sidebar:  The other day I saw the jay fussing around on the canopy of my pickup.  It was attempting to duke it out with it's reflection in the garage window.  Another jay flew up (probably it's mate) told it to knock it off and the two flew away together. 

   Today we drove to Longview, WA to see the famous squirrel bridge.  Amos Peters, who had an office next to this site got tired of watching squirrels getting squashed so he built this bridge.  It's strung between two trees, the western tree is in front of a small office building, the eastern in a park.  We didn't see any rodents using the bridge, but it has an undeniable cuteness factor.  The park has a memorial to Amos who died in 1984.  It's a reasonable thing to be remembered for. 
   After passing through Kelso (no smelt on display -- a shocking lapse for the Smelt Capital of the World) and looking around for anything else of interest (thrift stores don't count), we re-crossed the river via the Lewis and Clark bridge and returned to Portland.  We stopped at St Helens for lunch at the Hawaiian Island Cafe.  We each had a noodle dish (soba noodles, teriyaki chicken for me and pulled pork for dw) which was quite good.  Each of us also had an appetizer (spam, sticky rice, and a seaweed wrap) -- Hawaiians eat more Spam per capita than anyplace else -- the Spam and rice was OK -- Spam and rice -- the seaweed wrap (faux I think) was pretty bad -- neither of us ate the wrap.  The restaurant was all right.  Worth a stop if you're hungry in St. Helens.  But I'd suggest you pass on the Spam and rice appetizer.
   And I finished reading "Pinocchio" by Collodi.  In the first pages of the book, Pinocchio squashes Jiminy Cricket with a hammer.  He also falls asleep near a fire and burns his feet off.  Loved it. DA

I didn't - that Pinocchio book was way too gruesome for me.  I mean burning your feet off during a nap?  That's just creepy.  But funny, in its own way.  Nice day today exploring Longview as I had not been there before and lunch was wonderful including Waimea wheat passion fruit beer.  Yum.  dw   (p.s.  I tried the beer.  I was less enthusiastic.  DA)