Urban Squirrel Family

My buddy, Bushy the Squirrel, comes from a large family. He has relatives all over the place. He was showing some photos of his cousin Elmira who lives in a suburban neighborhood. I never fully realized what a great life we have at the Woodpile until Bushy told me her story.

Elmira found a nice cozy home in the wall of a house. It was perfect: warm and protected from the weather. Having found the perfect home, she decided to raise a family as a single parent. One morning, she was woken up by her two kids who had this terrified look on their faces. They told her they were trapped alive, the front (and only) door had disappeared. Groggily she got out of bed to investigate. As she bumped into the piece of plywood covering the door she was jolted wide awake even without her morning coffee.

She sharpened her teeth and went to work chewing her way through the wood. Wood chips went flying everywhere. She finally made an opening large enough to squeeze through. Popping her head through the new hole, she discovered the pesky humans had also nailed mesh wire over the shingles above the plywood. Good thing they ran out wire mesh and didn’t cover the plywood! Elmira vented her rage over this indignity by grabbing her wire cutters and cutting the human’s cable tv/phone/internet cable. A small and sadly short lived victory for critterkind.

The humans responded by getting a very large and fearsome looking guard dog. Alexa, the guard dog, kept calling out, “Come out and lets play a game of chase. It will be lots of fun.” Elmira was stuck in her house with two teenage kids for days. She tried pelting Alexa with acorns but the dog was too quick and dodged them. She tried calling the dog catcher but it turned out the human owner was the dog catcher’s fishing buddy.

Alexa was momentarily distracted by a runner going down the street. Elmira jumped from the hole onto the dog’s back. The dog took one look at this “killer” squirrel and flew over the chain link fence in a single bound never to be seen again.

Elmira carefully checked the yard for any other hidden dangers.

Satisfied it was now safe, she called the kids out for their first survival lessons.

First lesson was the “art of tree climbing.”

Elmira’s two kids, a son and daughter, had no problem going up the tree … but climbing down head first was a scary idea. Her son refused to come down.

Mom had to climb up the tree to give her son a pep talk. That was a complete failure. The kid refused to climb down. So, time for the backup plan A. Mom produced a chocolate covered acorn.

The kid’s eyes lit up with anticipation. No amount of hugs was going to get 

Mom to give him the candy.

Mom turned it into a game of chase straight down the tree!

After a moment the kid wised up and he refused to participate in the game of chase.

Well it was onto backup plan B. Mom gave the kid the chocolate covered acorn.

The kid found a nice perch in the tree to eat his treat.

 

Then Elmira gave her daughter who had climbed down the tree the rest of the bag of chocolate covered acorns. Her son horrified at the thought of his sister getting all the candies came flying down the tree without even thinking about what he was doing.

His sister wasn’t about to give up her treats so easily.

She teased him by eating the candy in front of him while he looked on helpless.

Then Mom told her she had to share.

Mom entertained the kids with a magic trick

in which it appeared she had stretched her body to double its length.