Squirrel Haven and Heaven

Joyce put up our bird feeders the other day, and it took a squirrel about a day to discover one (see pic). He has been spending much of his days now inside that feeder (where he was entirely when I took this pic through my study window), probably stunned that he has fallen into such great fortune—has won a seedy lottery.

As I said, I was watching through my study window when he discovered a squirrel’s version of Smaug's cave. It took him about 30 seconds to figure out how to get inside.

We're going to wait until he eats it all before we find a more bird-friendly location—a location that even the most Einsteinian of squirrels would fail to access.

It's hard to say whether we have more birds or squirrels in our yard (and an occasional feral cat on a bird hunt). Gray and black. I'm somewhat pleased that the black one (the evil one!) was the first to find the mother lode. Oh, how puzzled that squirrel will be when he discovers that lode is gone.

We’ve had some real adventures with squirrels in our marriage. Back in 80s a couple got into our attic, where they increased the squirrel population quite a bit before we got a guy to trap the parents and move them to a more remote location.

A few days later, a couple young ones, certainly hungry and befuddled, came crawling out and headed off for parts unknown.

Then in the 1990s (in a different house) we once again had to hire a guy to trap squirrels for us, take them far away, and seal their entry point.

Both trapping experiences left us free of scratching sounds in the attic, sounds loud enough to awaken both of us—infuriate both of us. And both experiences caused me to feel the rage that must animate murderers.

“Our” squirrels at our current house are very ... bold. We find walnuts in our mailbox, barely buried in our planters. We find their tracks in the snow on our front porch. And once a squirrel got into our trash, and I saw him gnawing on a corn cob out in our driveway. I must say I admired the thoroughness he employed with his gnawing: not a kernel remained when he’d finished.

They leave other evidence of their presence, as well.

But let’s not get into that ...