I’ve been indisposed and discommoded for a bit. Mostly I laid in bed and was awakened to eat or clean up.
Except, once a day I insisted on sitting outside on the deck for awhile. For some reason no one wanted me too. So I insisted with more force. Sometimes batting my eyelashes or crying one fat tear drop. Hey, I’m expert at manipulation, this way. Years of practice.
On my daily outing I began to notice a squirrel family. A Ma squirrel and 2 rambunctious boys.
One morning there was only Ma and one teenage son. She was activally trying run him off. He was not going to leave .
Finally she just ran off. Never to be seen again.
A few days later I got sat down on my deck chair and heard chattering from a squirrel. I looked over the deck rail and the squirrel (named Steven, btw) was on the ground cussing out a huge grasshopper. It must have been too close to one of his nut/acorn caches.
Steven likes living close to my deck. I believe he likes me. (Don’t, just don’t. I’m not insane, I promise)
Everyday he entertained me with various antics. One I liked was him getting really high in a pecan tree and dropping pecans onto the deck.
He would hang upside down from a huge limb and seemingly take risks by letting go with his hands. Just hanging on with the back legs. Flipping his tail at me. I swear. Dropping nuts down.
Many times I’d go out and he’d be on the deck railing. Running back and forth. Stopping to chatter at the dogs. Steven has no fear of my pampered pets.
He has recently became quite fluffy and is working overtime gathering his winter nuts. There’s a hole in an oak tree that is his home. I can look up there and see either his nose poking out or his tail hanging down. He’s very fat.
I think he’s ready to winter here.
I got some deer corn and sprinkled it on the deck rail. The little jerk won’t have it. He passes it right up. I guess pecans and acorns are better.
Steven, my little visitor. I have enjoyed you.
Now quit pooping on my deck rail.
You might appreciate one man’s effort to make a squirrel obstacle course.
Despite what the title says, he gave up early on a squirrel-proof bird feeder and decided to make them earn their treat instead. It’s the same guy who developed the glitter bomb for porch pirates last yar so it’s… elaborate.
There are youth baseball fields behind our house. Every year, the local organization hosts a Memorial Day tournament. Several years ago, we were introduced to George.
George was hanging out for a bit, checking out the bags of the spectators, and being a little bit annoying. George really introduced himself when he ran up the leg inside the shorts of the umpire of one game. Yes, George was a squirrel. No, the game did not resemble “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival”, but it could have…
I was introduced to George when I was hanging out there and he started crawling up my leg. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised, uttered a “what the %&@$”, and kicked him off my leg. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt, because the president of the organization came over and said “Oh, I see you met George”, at which point George climbed up his leg and into his shirt pocket and curled up.
George became a regular at the ballparks that summer. We don’t know where he came from, but he was OBVIOUSLY hand-trained. One of the rumors was that he was hanging out around Bass Pro Shop half an hour away; one of the workers there lived nearby and just dropped him off at the park. George was OK. Got pictures of him sitting on my shoulder eating peanuts; pictures of him with my daughter, etc.
Don’t know what happened to him. Didn’t see him after that fall - don’t know if he didn’t know how to live outside in the winter or didn’t know how to keep away from predators, or whatever. Kinda miss him; he was cute.
One of our train engineers, Bob, used to feed peanuts to the squirrels. He’d sometimes put one in his shirt pocket and they’d climb all the way up and grab it. And the rest of us would have squirrels hanging around annoying us all day but didn’t want them crawling all over us. (Gosh, I can’t imagine why not.)
Bob’s retired now, and the critters don’t come around as much. I’m not mad at that.
Back when dinosaurs meadered down Wilshire Boulevard in LA, right before they’d take a refreshing dip in the tar pits, I attended The Big U. Plenty of four-footed squirrels on campus. Campus police had to regularly remind the students to NOT share their Fritos or other snacks with them. While they were gosh-darn cute little fuzzy-wuzzies, the occasional squirrel turned up rabid.
The two-legged squirrels were also legion, but there wasn’t much you could do about them if they were enrolled.
