The Cub and I were walking down the street to catch his school bus the other day. It was a wet, moist autumn day, with that deep earthy smell that you get when the leaves have fallen in the rain.
I took a deep breath and said, “Hmm, that’s a funny smell.”
“Squirrel poop,” the Cub replied.
“Squirrel poop?” I asked.
“Yes. That smell is squirrel poop.”
“Seems an awful lot of squirrel poop to make that smell,” I ventured.
“It’s not just squirrel poop. All the wet trees and stuff? That’s squirrel pee.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They can only pee at night, so they hold it all in during the day, and then get the trees all wet at night. It’s a good thing we weren’t walking in the night.”
I agreed that it was a good thing, and then his bus came, and off he went to school, to learn more natural history.
