We’re not squirrel haters in this household, but perhaps we should be. We have an outdoor storage closet in need of renovation, particularly something to make it so rodents can’t get in; it gets rodent feces. Easily possible that’s nocturnal mice we’ve never seen, but we have seen squirrels around. Furthermore, they’ve seen us…
My husband has been longing to grill for a long time, and we finally got the thing set up. So we had occasion to be eating on our porch, which we usually are not. A squirrel was digging in our neighbor’s garden a lot. Didn’t look too destructive, more the endless burial and retrieval of nuts they are known for. We had some walnuts on the porch and my husband went to give that squirrel one of them.
Bad sign. The squirrel was brave enough to stay, instead of taking the nut and running. It stood right by his feet, in effortless kicking range. Somebody already made the mistake of teaching this thing humans are pushovers. But my dude was charmed to see him doing his little squirrel things, and did it again. This time, the squirrel put little hands on my husband’s black chuck taylors. I thought to myself, that squirrel would think nothing of climbing him.
Back on the porch with our corn on the cob, the beast comes over. My mother in law offered a bit of asparagus and some bits of corn, to which the beast turned up his nose. It’s all about that nut, so he went to the source – climbing on my dude, as predicted. He stood up and walked out into the yard so he could more easily desquirrel if necessary, but fortunately the rodent descended peacefully.
But he kept hanging out, knocking over garden gnomes and digging in violas and running up on people. What in the hell. At the peak of this chicanery, he climbed halfway up and back down my leg, and nipped my ankle with rodent incisors. Not remotely hard enough to draw blood or cause pain, but seriously. What in the hell.
We chased him off multiple times with sticks and brooms until he finally kept his distance. Don’t give squirrel your nut.
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Looking at just your title, I thought you might be writing about Iris Vander Pluym’s blog. I used to follow her; but her last post was three years ago.
Is she still with us? I have a possibly false memory that she was very ill.
Iris had colon cancer. I’ve been afraid — and respectful of her privacy — to ask how she’s doing.
importantly, last i heard she did not have cancer anymore – just the rugged end of the effects of treatment. so one should try to assume she’s alive and taking care of herself, i think. yes, this title was a nod to her. hello out there, u funky despiser of sciuriform rodents.