In My Own Backyard . . . And Front . . . And Side, Part 2

I have squirrels, as you may have guessed. Not by choice. No. Choice is not operative here.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t write about squirrels. No doubt someone else already has. But I write because they are here. It’s not an infestation, quite, but they are plentiful. Not a day passes squirrel-less.

People keep telling me these are gray squirrels, but I think they’re fox squirrels. I went on google and took a good look at both the western gray and the western fox squirrel, and I’m voting for the fox. But gray, fox, whatever. I can feel exactly the same about either.

These squirrels that I have, they gallop across my roof several times every day, and sometimes they stop, and I can hear them fiddling with things while they're up there. I don't like it.

You’re probably thinking squirrels don’t gallop, they scamper, the cute little things, but you haven’t heard them on my roof. They might as well have hoofs; they sound like they have hoofs. (When I was young, wasn’t that supposed to be hooves?)

Anyway, their daily traipse over my roof is only one of their annoying habits. I can no longer have bird feeders, because the squirrels eat the food, even when I have used what were “certified” squirrel-proof feeders. They find a way. For instance, they actually took apart the feeder I used to have outside my writing room window. They unscrewed the thing. I had to admire that, but I didn’t, and don’t, have to like them.

So they’re smart, I’ll give them that, but I suppose all rodents are smart, and squirrels are rodents, remember.

People keep telling me they’re cute, these squirrels. I do not think so. Remember, a squirrel is a rodent, a rat with a bushy tail, and would these people who think they’re cute like rats running all over their yards? (I know. I keep repeating this squirrels are rodents part. I’m trying to make a point. The point being: squirrels are rodents.) And could squirrel droppings be good for our health? Squirrels are not choosy about where they defecate, and so on.

People say they’re harmless, these squirrels, but the squirrels in my yard have not been harmless. They have caused problems for my trees. They, the squirrels, go up there and scratch—or is it scrape or is it tear with their teeth?—at the bark and have stripped bark from several branches in my Rose Hill Ash. Bark is essential to a tree’s life and health. Squirrels are not.

They also dig in the flowers I plant. They eat the seeds or the bulbs. That is, they used to dig in the flowers I used to plant.