I was standing on the patio, when I felt the barest brush of fur on my bare ankles. I thought it was a cat, but I quickly saw two black squirrels running straight away from me across the yard. I don’t know if they were bold, or if they thought I was a tree or piece of patio furniture, or if they just weren’t paying attention. Tonka stayed in the chair he was in. (Actually, there were no nuts involved in this story. Just squirrels.)
We’re still waiting for a replay of an occurrence that happened a couple of months ago. A squirrel leapt from a cedar to a maple. The branch it landed on broke, and it fell about 50 feet. Stunned it. Creamsicle went into stalking mode, but she didn’t figure out the situation until the squirrel recovered. It’s not that we want to see any squirrels hurt, but it was rather amusing to see one’s plan go awry.
Stunned Squirrel–One fine spring day in Walla Walla, Wa (really!) I was walking to class when I saw what I initially believed to be a grey, hairy meteorite thud onto the sidewalk about 4 feet in front of me. As I was an inquisitive fellow at the time, I examined the object and swiftly came to the conclusion it was actually terrestrial in origin, or perhaps arboreal as I was standing under a particularly grand chestnut tree and it was, to all outward appearances, a dead grey squirrel. As I was a resourceful fellow at the time, I recalled my employment of a grey squirrel cadaver in a vertebrate biology class only two years before, and recognized an opportunity to do my part in replenishing the lab stocks I had depleted. I knelt down beside the little guy and prepared to tote him back to the lab (by the tail). However, it turned out he was still imbued with the full living spirit of his creator and he let out a yelp. As I was a bit of a pussy at the time, I vocalized in response after the fashion of a juvenile female of my own species and surrendered my grasp on the assassin’s (for by now I had realized the true and nefarious, if ill-timed, intent of this rascal) flea-infested tail, whereon it effected a most expeditious return to the branches. Over the course of the remainder of that spring, we would occasionally make eye contact–his glance reminding me of his unfinished work, and mine reminding him of my intimate familiarity of various bits of his anatomy.
So The Fella is in a non-ending War on Squirrels in the backyard. (It’s non-ending b/c we actually feed the squirrels. <put your own eyeroll in here>)
He gets mad that the squirrels eat the bird food out of the bird feeder. And he’s tried to find ways to make it harder for them.
We have the classic bird feeder that looks like a little house. You lift a part of the ‘roof’ up to fill it. He walks out one day and there’s a squirrel, with the lid up, gorging its self on bird food… and for no reason he can explain, he did this:
Grabbed the bird feeder and closed the lid on the squirrel. Who, as you may guess, begins to freak the fuck out. So The Fella is standing there thinking “I have an angry tree rat in a plastic box…what do I do now?”
Think about it. It’s a little horrifying.
He pulled the lid. Cringed and flung. The squirrel exploded out of the feeder and ran to and climbed up the tree in the back yard and sat and yelled at him. (Chattering I guess, but it was definitely pointed towards him.)
