Here in the treetops

After a short hiatus, I am back.
I moved in the interim, and am now in a third floor apartment
Although I am not the biggest fan of apartment living, I sort of enjoy being up here.
My most interesting neighbors are the squirrels that scamper around the trees that are next to my windows.
They also use the power and cable lines as a sort of interstate system to travel rapidly from yard to yard in their search for food.
They are entertaining little rodents, I must admit.
I can identify several individuals by sight now--no, all squirrels do NOT look the same.
One little squirrel seems to be the "merry prankster" of the local population. He races from branch to branch...chattering away at the others and seems to instigate chaos and fights where-ever he goes.
If there is a tail to be tweaked, he is there to tweak it. He ambushes other squirrels, pouncing on the others who wander past him.
A Squirrel of Adventurous Spirit, he also seems to love annoying the very large dog in the yard behind us.
The dog, a mastiff, doesn't have the speed or agility of our fluffy tailed friend, so it is a one sided battle. The little rodent will pilfer dog food from the bowl with cheeky abandon, knowing the large dog cannot possibly catch him in a genuine pursuit. When not pilfering kibbles and bits, our adventurous squirrel will wait until the large dog is snoozing peacefully in the shade and then creep quietly as close as possible and suddenly sit up and loudly chatter at the poor canine. The dog, so rudely awakened, jumps to his feet and looks for the culprit.
And then the chase begins.
The squirrel, to his credit, does wait until the mastiff lumbers to his feet before heading for a tree. Then it is a few circles around the tree before the squirrel starts his ascent. The squirrel ends up sitting on a branch *just* out of reach of the dog and chatters down in what I can only suppose is the squirrel equivilant of "Nyaah, nyaah, you can't catch me!"
The dog is left barking impotently at the annoying little rodent before lumbering back to his shady spot to continue his nap.

So goes the entertainment around here,,,