My grand kids had a long somber funeral for a dead squirrel they found under the swing set. Even named him, Squire Squirrel.
The oldest learned from the Cinderella movie that Squires are important. So he got special honorifics and a rock headstone.
Get enough of them and you have a lovely lining for your mantle…
In my state, grey squirrels are considered a fur-bearing game animal with a hunting season, and chipmunks and red squirrels are considered vermin, that can be killed at will. There are jokes about quickly painting your squirrel red if the game warden shows up.
(I have troubles with squirrels and chipmunks eating my unripe fruit. I researched the law and bought a pellet gun thinking i might try to reduce the population. And actually, despite the season, it’s legal for me to kill a squirrel that is damaging my property, so i think “while it’s eating my fruit” would count. I never got as far as loading that gun, but i haven’t completely dropped the idea of using it, either. I intentionally bought a gun that isn’t powerful enough to kill a dog or a child unless you were grossly unlucky and hit one in the eye, though. You don’t need a lot of fire power to kill a squirrel.)
The Dooky Chase Cookbook (produced by the New Orleans restaurant of that name) includes recipes for squirrel stew and squirrel pie. From the latter:
You have to steam the squirrel until it is tender, pick it all off the bone, and then you make your sauce and put it in a spicy crust. If I don’t have enough squirrels to do pies, I have found they make good “critter gumbo”when combined with venison sausage. Squirrel pie, though, is worth the effort.
When I was a kid, I once shot a squirrel for no good reason. My grandmother made me help her skin it, she made squirrel & dumplings, and made me eat it.
Honestly I don’t really remember what it tasted like, mostly dumpling, but I took the lesson that the dressing comes with the killing, and you shouldn’t do the latter if you’re not prepared to do the former.
Jeffey Dahmer was just thorough
As for those of you still upset about the joking. It’s called gallows humor. We reside in an especially violent and militaristic society, and we are inundated with information about the tragedy of gun misuse.
So when it occurs in an especially weird or unusual way, it’s fodder for people to make jokes. They aren’t joking as a form of directly mourning the dead, but there is some sense of joking so you don’t cry: life is sick. Life in 2025 America is especially sick.
Whatchagonnado?
Nearly all the squirrels in my neighborhood (westside of L.A.) look like this.
I rarely see any who are grey or nearly all grey. I very occasionally see very dark ones that are almost black.
My sister was walking the two dogs we had about 15 years ago, and they approached a squirrel fairly closely without the squirrel noticing them. Once it did notice, did it run up the tree that was right there? Oh, no. It had to run right between two slavering dachshunds. They both grabbed it, but my sister was able to get them to drop it almost immediately. Then it ran up the tree.
I can’t tell you how often I’ve cursed the fickle squirrel. They are hoarders and thieves.
Issues:
Robbing the kitchen garden.
Rifling around in the trash in the burn barrel.
Stealing bird seed.
Stealing all the nuts off the trees and using my deck as their picnic grounds. Those shells and hulls hurt worse than stepping on a Lego brick.
The one who decided the garage was a good place to hole up, build a nest, sneak down and steal the Garage cats food, right from the bowls. Causing many chase scenes. Squirrels are louder than you’d think.
The one who got et by a snake that obviously killed the snake who died under my porch and didn’t smell very nice. Longer than you’d think.
The one who caused sparks from the barn by chewing wires. Putting us all out of power for longer than you’d believe.
Many many fruits from trees ruined.
Many boards/logs chewed.
And finally; the one who ran my DIL into a ditch. She claims. The walk home was longer than she believed!
Squirrels are Glires which happen to be the next evolutionary branch over from us primates.