Once Upon a Squirrel

Once upon a time the tumbleweeds were blowing in from the west. It was a hot, dry morning but my cowboy boots kept my feet cool. Or at least my boots' odor eaters did. I was up early doing what cowboys do: surveying the ranch, assessing the critter damage and drinking green tea from a dainty Japanese cup.

My morning property survey had proved that: 1) The mockingbird was still on its nest, which made my cowboy eyes twinkle; 2) The drought tolerant garden was doing its drought tolerant thing, which made my cowboy face smile and; 3) My old enemy, that thieving squirrel, didn't like drought tolerant gardens, which made me slap my cowboy knee with glee. 

Not seeing that blasted squirrel was worth all the time, trouble and backbreaking work of creating that garden. So the front yard was now squirrel free. As for the backyard I hadn't seen much of the furry critter since my ranch helper had scared the begezuss out of it. Every cowboy should have a ferocious protector like Jackson, my pussycat. So the backyard was also free of poacher squirrels. As I shuffled across the driveway back to the homestead I sighed with relief. Finally this cowboy could relax--

What was that? A movement overhead at the neighbor's caught my eye. Looking up I saw it--walking the telephone wire like a circus tightrope walker. It was none other than that poacher thief--the squirrel. It scampered to the telephone pole then raced--head first--down to the ground. 

Its mouth was empty as it bounded into the street right for my ranch lands. I knew what it wanted: to get on my property and steal more fruits, vegetables and pool rafts. To be fair, although it had never stolen a pool raft with this squirrel it was just a matter of time before it had a margarita in one hand, an apricot in the other while floating around on a raft in my pool. I turned in my boots and took five paces toward the varmint. It saw me and stopped in the middle of the road. 

Partner, it was a showdown, like High Noon, Unforgiven, and Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. Anyway you looked at it one of us was going to win while the other was never going to steal anything else from my ranch again. 

I took a pace forward. The squirrel hopped once toward me. I took another step toward it, the squirrel bounded several hops toward me. It wasn't stopping. I waved my weapon--my arm--overhead. It did not care! It laughed in my face! It was leaping toward my property and I realized once it got on my land it would run up a tree--out of my reach--and jump from tree to tree thereby reaching my backyard and vegetable garden goodies. The varmint! Who was I kidding? I couldn't fight this bad guy by myself. I needed help from my cat but my ferocious Jackson was sawing wood. Again.

The squirrel bounded again landing two feet from my property line, I was just two feet away from losing every fruit and vegetable in these here parts, when the mockingbird came out of the trees flapping! It got in the path of the squirrel and flapped its gray and white wings in the varmint's face! The bird was fierce, relentless, tough! It spooked the thief who turned and raced back to the telephone pole it had crawled down from.

The mockingbird watched it go. I watched it go. I applauded the mocker and thanked her. She didn't pay attention to me. To her she was just keeping peace in this western town. Oh, yeah and preventing the squirrel from getting anywhere near her nest. The squirrel's reputation had precede it.

Once upon a time there was a squirrel who menaced an innocent cowboy so the area's lady mockingbird sheriff took care of the problem, which is another reason you should never kill a mockingbird.

The Squirrel Villain

Batman had The Joker.

Superman had Lex Luthor.

And I had… The Squirrel.

In the world of comic books every great superhero had his villain. Not just any villain but a real bad guy who was his match in wits, strength and devilish plans. My life in California’s suburbs was imitating comic book art because I too had found the evil Yin to my heroic Yang and his name was… The Squirrel.

The Squirrel had thwarted me by eating apricots off my tree and decimating my internet connection with his fierce jaws. But he didn’t stop there.

In winter’s chill he scaled a palm tree and shredded the palm fronds causing them to rain down on my front walk like a biblical Egyptian plague or that weird scene in the film Magnolia with the falling frogs.

In summer’s heat he stole a massive steak tomato from my garden.

Now in spring I’d sprung a plan to be rid of The Squirrel forever. My plan had one step—it was so simple that it had to work! I removed all the fruit, vegetable and mineral elements from my front and back gardens and—as everyone knows—without food The Squirrel would move onto another garden to wreck havoc there.

Everyone on the planet knew this except Mr. Wonderful who spent Sunday outside chatting long distance to his college pal while eating walnuts. When he came across a walnut he didn’t like he tossed it on the patio where—Duh, duh—The Squirrel appeared, ate it and laughed.

“Squirrels can’t laugh,” Mr. Wonderful said.

“You don’t know The Squirrel,” I said chasing it out of our garden. “Now that you’re feeding it I’ll never conquer my villain.”

“Excuse me?” he said but I didn’t have time to explain.

This morning before breakfast I saw that The Squirrel was back. Seated in the same area of the patio waiting for a walnut handout from Mr. Wonderful. Typical. But I wasn’t the only one who saw the rodent. Jackson crept across the kitchen then slipping through the open sliding glass door he met The Squirrel head on. The Squirrel freaked! I saw the panic in his beady eyes! Jackson chased it to the property line and watched it race up the camellia tree and collapse on the fence

Have you ever seen a Squirrel have a heart attack? Today I did. And it was beautiful.

For 30 minutes Jackson crouched at the base of the camellia tree keeping watch. Once The Squirrel recovered from his massive coronary failure he crawled onto the roof and scampered away, all the while Jackson watched every step.

Jackson, my Jackson! How proud I was of him! Fighting The Squirrel was a fulltime job but finally I had help. Jackson the Cat was now my sidekick—my Robin, my Lois Lane, myhero.

The Enemy… Returns

Today, beware the return of an old enemy. 

“Horoscopes are so dramatic and silly,” I said sipping my morning coffee as Jackson drank from his water bowl. 

Pushing the newspaper aside I opened my computer to this message: ‘You are not connected to the internet.’

“What’s going on?”

The cat shrugged and licked his butt.

Beware the return of an old enemy.  Darn that horoscope!

Indeed.  Double-checking my computer confirmed I wasn’t connected to the internet, which meant I was shut out of my Facebook feed, I was blocked from tweeting this news to my twitter followers and I was prohibited from watching the latest dancing cat videos on youtube.  My life had screeched to a halt.

I needed to fix this.  And I had to discover who my horoscope’s “returning enemy” was because the lack of an internet connection must be tied to this old enemy.  They happened on the same day, therefore they must be connected.  Hello—it was only logical.

“Hi, neighbor,” Harold said in the dark morning, poking his 86-year-old head over our shared fence.  His eyes peered into our kitchen through the open door.

“You’re an early riser, Harold.”  I looked at him closely, my eyes shrinking to a squint.  He was old but was he the enemy?

“I understand your internet is out—”

“How did you know?” I said suspicion rising in my voice.  Ah-ha!  Harold was the enemy!  I flicked on the porch lamp, which flooded his face with a jolt of light.  He blinked from the brightness.   “Harold, what did you do to the wires? ”

“Nothing.  I—I didn’t do nothing.”  He shook his head. 

“Then how did you know my internet was out?”

“Because, ‘cause mine is, too,” he stammered.

“Likely story,” I shook my head.  “I’m calling our service provider.”

“I already did.  They can’t come out until next week—”  

“Forget it.  I’ll handle this.”  I said reaching for my phone.  With the door closed, I considered the facts: Harold had thwarted me in the past but if he too lacked an internet connection, he couldn’t be the cause of my internet outage nor could he be “my returned enemy”.

I dialed Time-Warner and spent the next 40 minutes punching the keypad in response to the menu voice-prompts.  There is a special circle of hell reserved for voice-prompts and it’s located between Hoarders and Thieves because they hog up my time as they steal my patience.  Maybe voice-prompt menus were my returning enemy…  Although it didn’t explain how a voice prompt could disconnect my internet.  Horoscopes were mental puzzles!

When I finally got a live human, “Bob” told me, “there isn’t an outage problem in your area.”

“Then tell me why my neighbor and I don’t have an internet connection.”

“Coincidence?” Bob asked.  “Whatever?  We’ll have someone there in 6 days to check it out?”  Since Bob was asking me questions with his Valley Girl rising tone, I said “No”, which convinced him to send a technician to my house that day.

Ahhh, the benefits of dealing with people who ask questions?  Over those who make statements.

A smiling Rafael of Time-Warner arrived in his bucket truck and after climbing the pole determined that Harold and I were right.  We lacked an internet connection in our homes.  Perhaps Rafael was my returning enemy?  Impossible, I’d never met him before and besides, with his big, white smile, he couldn’t know the meaning of “enemy”. 

Instead Rafael found something—a part of the black Time-Warner cable had a hole in it.

“A squirrel chewed through it,” he said pointing to the now exposed, plastic white wire.

My old enemy hadreturned!  It was the squirrel, the one I had stopped from eating our apricots!  I considered the rodent’s cunningness.  He’d come back, weeks later, with a vendetta.

“Squirrels chewing though cables, that never happens,” I said.

“Oh, it happens all the time,” Rafael said replacing the cable.

“But this chew-through, it’s particularly bad,” I said peering around my yard for the varmint. 

“Nope, it’s just standard,” he smiled as I slumped.  He continued, “actually the unique thing about this chew-through is how small it is.  It knocked out connectivity to just two houses: yours and the neighbor’s.”

“It’s like the squirrel was getting revenge on me,” I said my eyes expanding, my breath coming fast.  “Like he wanted to get me back after I deprived him of my apricots!  But I showed him!  Yes, I did!”

“Uh, sure,” Rafael said leaping into his truck and racing off.

For having a brain the size of a walnut, this squirrel was a worthy foe.  It knew revenge was a dish best served cold.  Well, Ha! squirrel!  You couldn’t eat my apricots and you couldn’t keep me disconnected from watching cat videos.  I wiiin!

Squirrel 1; New House Girl 2

Even though the horoscope had been right about my day, I still thought horoscopes were overly dramatic and super silly.  Like, right?

Squirrel Hell

“What a great party,” I said restacking the outdoor chairs, a smile spreading over my lips.

“Yes,” Mr. Wonderful said reparking the grill beside the fence.

“The sun, the food, the friends; it was perfect.”

“Yes.”

“Nothing could remove this grin from my face.”

“A squirrel is eating our apricots.”

“What!”

                                         

Back in December we’d planted several fruit trees including a Blenheim apricot.  Because I’m an impatient orchardist, we’d bought trees that were already several years old so they would bear fruit for us this summer and I was looking forward to July/August because that’s when apricots ripen in our Valley.  We’d planted our apricot tree in the backyard to protect it from hungry people passing by.  We hadn’t thought about protecting it from hungry squirrels. 

But squirrels were so cute and fluffy with big brown eyes that made my heart melt.  They wouldn’t steal our almost-ripe fruit.  I followed Mr. Wonderful’s gaze and saw eight apricots on the ground chewed through to the pit.  From the teeth marks it was undoubtedly a squirrel’s work.  Mind you, not a famished one because the fruit was only half eaten.  Instead it was the work of a slacker squirrel too lazy to chew around the apricot’s central stone pit so it just tossed the half eaten fruit aside and plucked another almost-ripe piece and hit the repeat button again.  And again.  And again. 

Just then the squirrel appeared, leapt from the neighboring tree to our apricot, plucked another half-ripe fruit right before my eyes and starting chomping away.  This one squirrel would decimate our entire crop of edible fruit before it ripened in August.  I decided: this was war!

The first stop was the Ivory Tower professionals.  The University of California had an excellent website for in-state fruit growers which suggested several time-sensitive methods to deal with squirrels.  According to its pie chart May-August was the season of glorious summer for humans and primo poison time for ground squirrels.  U of C suggested poisons—from Anticoagulants to Zinc Phosphides—be put into a bait station and Voila!  Squirrels and problem gone.  The only hitch was we had a cat who was more curious than smart.  If I put squirrel poison in my garden, I couldn’t guarantee that Jackson wouldn’t be hurt, too.  I dumped the poison option; metaphorically speaking.

Outside I saw Harold, our 86 year-old neighbor with the sparkling blue eyes.  In all his years Harold must have used some method to deal with ground squirrels, even if it was during the nicey-nice Eisenhower Administration. 

“How good a shot are you?” he asked.

“I shot skeet... in college… once—”

“You’ll need a shotgun.  Believe me you hit ‘em with lead bullets, they’ll never come back,” he said with a chuckle, which made me rethink the niceness of the Eisenhower Administration. 

“I don’t know—” I said looking for the right word to extricate myself from the conversation.

“Oh, you kids don’t want to hurt the vermin.  Then use rubber bullets.  Just don’t shoot out my windows.”

I retreated to our property.  What was wrong with me?  I had started gardening to experience the joy of growing our own food and finding harmony with nature.  And now I was contemplating poisons and guns to wipe out the natural wildlife.  When did I become a cold-hearted killer?  Weren’t the squirrels here before my apricot tree?  Before the house?  Before me?  The problem wasn't with the squirrel, it was with me.

That was it!  I couldn’t remove the squirrel but I could remove the temptation.  A friend of mine volunteered for the local arboreal organization, Tree People, where she learned that apricots are one of the few fruits that can ripen off the tree. 

That night while the squirrels slept I dressed in camouflage and snuck out of the house.  On my way to the apricot tree I tripped over 10 more pieces of half-eaten fruits.  I controlled my anger—so as not to blow my cover—plucked all the remaining fruit from our tree and tiptoed back to the safety of my kitchen encampment.  I put all the half-ripened fruit into a brown paper bag, folded the flap down and left it on the countertop. 

A week later the fragrance of ripe apricots wafted toward me as I approached the brown bag.  Opening the bag was like magic—our half green-orange fruits had transformed into orange orbs with a faint rose blush.  They were the ideal picture of what the perfect apricot looked like.  For breakfast I cut one in half and shared it with Mr. Wonderful on the back patio.  The flavor was sweet, juicy and perfect.  It was the ideal taste of what the perfect apricot was. 

From the table outside I watched the squirrel leap onto our apricot tree looking for fruit.  He didn’t find anything except, on the ground, the pit of the delicious apricot we’d completely eaten.

Squirrel—0; New House Girl—1