Meet Little Guy. He wandered boldly across the patio the other day and directly
onto the table where I was reading the paper. The cat looked up in surprise, but
did not challenge him. The dog chased him once around the yard, but Little Guy
was focused and his mind was clear. Fall is in the air, after all, and a squirrel’s
thoughts turn to the business of survival.
Little Guy had no interest in the dog treat I set tentatively on the ground.
He was lukewarm on baby carrots, apple slices, Rye Crisp and Cheerios. Each time
I went for something knew, the brownish, grayish figure fullowed me up the back
step and stood, with more impatience than anticipation, just inside the kitchen
door. It was only when I discovered a packet of walnuts that I was rewarded with
an enthusiastic chirp. He took the morsel happily, tucked it somewhere, and stretched
his fingery paws out for more.
"Those things have rabies, you know," I was told again and again by friends and
relative. And I’m sure there is something tragically cruel about feeding a wild
animal. But squirrels, I’m thinking, are less wild than many. Little Guy, for
example, arrives precisely at 4:30 each afternoon. He is clearly on his way from
somewhere to somewhere else – across my office roof, along the trellis and down
the wooden fence. He has, it seems, about 15 minutes to spare before he has to
catch a telephone wire to a tree branch.
Like I said, this character knows what he wants. He dines politely. He knows
what he can carry, or at least I thought he did until yesterday when I heard an
odd scraping sound in the back yard after Little Guy had moved on down the line.
Sure enough, the petite visitor had circled around for more and dragged the entire
Zip-lock bag of shelled walnuts across the yard and up the fence, but had dropped
it by my door. He chattered angrily as I picked up the bag, handed him one more,
and pocketed the rest.
"See you tomorrow," I said, feeling a small piece of my sanity falling away.
A man alone talking to a squirrel is a sad sight to see. But no one saw, and fall
is coming, and I too have great bags of work to finish before the snow flies.
-- JDR
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