Possumblog

Dumb ol' squirrels

While I was off last week, I looked out the back door Wednesday to watch the rain, which caused Catherine to come pounding up behind me to look, too. Anytime she thinks I'm going outside, she wants to go, too. But, it was raining, and I was just looking.

"LOOK! There's squirrels, Daddy!"

Sure enough, there were three of the little vermin chasing each other around the backyard in the wet grass. Well, this might be interesting. So, Cat and I eased out onto the patio under the porch and stood there to see what they'd do. Well, you know how squirrels are. They zipped back and forth and then one got the idea he was hungry.

As you all know, I've fought a long battle with these pea-brained beasts to keep them out of the bird feeders, and only in the last few years was I able to finally find something they couldn't get into.

(Yes, I realize if they're so stupid, and it took me so long to find something to thwart them, that it doesn't really say a whole lot about my mental capacity. Well, fine. But they just better understand I only have to be smart enough to load the .22, and they'd all be little goners, so they shouldn't think themselves THAT superior to me.)

Anyway, I thought I'd found the solution, but I noticed one fat tub of nuts climb up on the tree stump, lean waaaaaaay over to the little iron stand that holds one of the feeders, grab hold of the upright, and manage to hang on long enough to clasp one of the metal bird perch/feeder openings with his icky little clawed hands. He seemed quite proud of himself, and for a moment tried to actually get on the feeder, but the perches were too small. HAH! Stupid rodent. BUT THEN, in a most extraordinary turn of events, he managed to REMOVE one of the perches from out of the tube! The plastic tube had a small crack in one of the tiny holes that holds the perch in place, which left the perch just barely friction-fit into the tube. So, the little thief had figured out a way to get the perch loose--luckily, the tube was empty, so he didn't get any food out, but had it been full, the whole thing would have drained out onto the ground, and he and his buddies would have thought they'd died and gone to Stupid Rodent Heaven. As it was, he contented himself with sitting back down on the stump with his shiny hunk of metal and trying to gnaw some of the stuck seeds out of it.

THEN, Squirrel Buddy #2 decided if it was so danged easy, he'd get in on the act as well. We have another feeder that doesn't have a nearby convenient stump, so Sparky decided he'd climb up the post. Except, instead of being a slightly rough and rusty square rod like the other feeder, the one he was attempting was round, and has a nice slick coat of paint, and, as I mentioned, it was raining.

He made several valiant efforts to get up it, and finally managed to get all the way to the top where it rounds over to the hook that holds the feeder. And then slid, head downward, slowly all the way back down to the ground when he couldn't keep his toehold on the rain-slicked pole. I had to laugh. "Take THAT you miserable pile of fur!" and I shook my fist at him like this ::shakes fist::

Catherine thought this was all quite hilarious, as well as when they got startled by all of my fist-shaking and chased each other up the maple tree.

Anyway, I think I need to move one of my feeders over a bit.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at July 14, 2005 09:49 AM