We took advantage of the warm weather today to start work on the balcony outside the kitchen door. It’s something close to 40 years old, and while solidly built and still ostensibly safe, it needs work. We have grey squirrels. Cute little buggers. There’s one we’ve dubbed the 9:30 squirrel who climbs the woodpile every morning and hops onto the balcony to check things out, maybe climb the screen door, and then disappear down the hole the little furry bucktoothed bastards chewed in the floorboards.
So today, the task today was to remove the aluminum drainage panels underneath, that for the last god-knows-how-many years have served double duty as a squirrel condo. Nasty, heavy, dirty work - did I mention there’s a black walnut tree in the yard? There were HEAPS of old walnut shells piled up in there, along with clumps of old nesting material. I’d say it was like an episode of Hoarders where people live in houses filled with garbage, but you can’t really shame a squirrel by pointing out that they’re living in their own filth. Their level of hoarding is probably a point of pride. “Did ya see Chippy’s hoard? It’s awesome! He’s got so many walnut shells you can’t even walk around in there! You have to tunnel!”
We got the panels down, dumped the contents on the compost heap, and laid them out to dry out so we can brush off most of the remaining dirt tomorrow. I looked up at the hole from the underside and started laughing as a certain thought struck me.
What happens tomorrow when the 9:30 squirrel hops up on the deck, checks things out, and disappears down the hole…where there is now a 7 foot drop straight to the ground? I don’t know, but I’ll be watching.
Yup. I was burning leaves in the yard yesterday, and a pair of squirrels chewed me out in terms that likely would’ve made a drill instructor blush (If the drill instructor spoke squirrel).
This morning 9:30 squirrel is pawing around in the compost heap, like an evicted tenant sorting his belongings dumped on the sidewalk. I almost feel bad about that…but who am I kidding, he’s probably thinking “Hot damn, look at all these WALNUTS!”
He hasn’t been up to the balcony yet that I’ve seen. I’ll keep you guys posted.
First, he spent a minute or so licking his favorite concrete block. He does that occasionally, I assume it’s for the salt. Licklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklick. Then he hopped back down onto the woodpile, the way he came up. He avoided the hole entirely.
Either I missed the payoff earlier this morning, or he’s a clever little stinker who knew what was up.
Anonymous Coward, the squirrel launchers are something I truly feel guilty about laughing like a loon at. It’s so mean, and yet there’s something ridiculously hilarious about the sight of the little guys flailing as they fly through the air and drop neatly over the neighbor’s fence. BWONNNNG “MOTHerfuuckaaaaaaaaahh!”
My father has a friend with a love-hate relationship with a particular bird feeder thief. He bought one ofthese. He said the first time he went out to fill it after the squirrel got flung, it cussed him out from a tree the whole time he was out there. The squirrel figured it out after a while. The guy treats it as something of a game to outwit the squirrel, and it seems the squirrel is in on it.
My dog once chased a squirrel up the side of a building that didn’t quite give him the toe-hold he was looking for. He proceeded to fall. Right into my dog’s jaws. I yelled sharply. My dog dropped him. That squirrel got lucky.
Rats with cute fluffy tails is what they are. Bring 'em on I say. I have a bike horn.
My mother gets tons of squirrels at her bird feeders. Over the years they’ve grown fat and complacent. You can walk right up behind them and they’ll ignore you until you get just a few feet away. There are some that are so intent on munching away on the sunflower seeds that they don’t even notice you until you’re close enough to touch them, and even then they have the handy pear tree right there to make a very quick and effective escape.
One day I’d bought a new bike horn, the classic black bulb kind that made the classic “honk-AH!” sound when you squeezed it. I was admiring my purchase and glanced out the window, where one of the fat squirrels was hogging the feeder again.
Bike horn. Oblivious squirrel. Hmmm.
I crept up quietly; he never saw me coming. Just sat there, making so much noise chowing down on his seeds that I got close enough to grab his tail if I’d wanted to. But I had a different evil in mind.
honk-AH!
I wasn’t aware squirrels could jump straight up. He flew 3 feet straight into the pear tree branches right above his head, and I would swear there was a little poof of squirrel fur settling out of the air around the feeder as I laughed.
The first house I owned had a back yard that went to jungle because the owner died, and I bought the place from the estate. The back yard had only been mowed for 2 or 3 years. The trees had been let go.
Well, we also had a Boxer that loved to chase squirrels. She’d never catch them, just took great pride in making them run for their lives.
About a year after moving in, it was time. I bought a chainsaw and pruning shears, cut down about 4 ornamental trees, and trimmed the rest. For the first time, I could look out the back door and see the neighbor’s yard instead of a dense tangle that I feared held aboriginal natives bent on my death.
It took me a while to haul away the piles of brush, and one day while I was doing that, I noticed a squirrel on the patio. Sadie saw it, too, and came flying out her dog door. The squirrel was apparently used to this game, because it took off, but not in that great of a panic. That was until it jumped for a tree, and landed on the foot high stump of it’s former escape route. I learned what “Oh shit!” sounded like in squirrelspeak.
The bonus was the squirrel finally did panic, and climbed/jumped over the 6 foot chain link fence into the neighbors yard, right into the lap of her Husky that ate squirrels like potato chips. Skwerl’s eyes popped out of it’s furry little head, and it ran screaming back up the fence and escaped along the top bar.
