squirrels

This morning I thought I heard my first actual spring robin, chirrup chirree, and I levered myself out of bed and pulled up the blinds. Scanned the side tree and heard him from the back. Checked the back trees — starlings, squirrel — and there on a low branch over my yard he perched, puffy, orange, tooting and laughing for about a minute and then he flitted on.

But I wanted to write about squirrels. I have this complex relationship with the backyard squirrels and I want to be honest about it. I love every living thing including cockroaches and especially including slime mold but last year I hated these squirrels. I don’t know if it’ll be the same this year.

I hated the squirrel aubade at dawn. I did not know squirrels did this but every early morning last summer this one somewhat piebald, scraggly individual sat with his motheaten tail over his head on a dead branch about two feet from my bedroom window, scratched at his mites, and squawked the squirrel welcome to the day. It was harsh, loud, and interminable. His stupid squirrel voice chittered and rasped and squealed and even vomited out his message: Hello world! O happy day! This is my yard! That’s right! In case you do not remember me from every other miserable dawn, it is I!  Squirrel!  Today I have quite an appetite for garden vegetables and a general exuberance for life’s offerings, but I will continue to be careful crossing the street!

Did I really want him dead? Well, did I not have cause? He (or one of his children) ate every one of the green strawberries that blushingly presented itself from the pot on my deck; dug up the bean seedlings as they sprouted; pulled off the green tomatoes in the garden and left them squirrel-chomped on a railing. (Can a squirrel not appreciate ripe fruit? Or was it just a tragedy of the commons and competition that he was forced to pluck the sour fruit before another philistine squirrel got to it? You know it’s that kind of attitude that would lead him, given the right technology, to genetically modify tomatoes so they can’t taste good and then ship them to stores nationwide, all for a lousy buck…)

Following advice from the internets, I tried to protect my seedlings with bits of sharp broken pottery and then the liberal application of hot pepper oil. The pottery turned out to be a fun challenge for him to dig through but at first the chili oil seemed to work. The beans would go untouched for a whole week and then I would reapply. But naturally Mr. Squirrel developed a taste for it. I started to find him on the deck in the morning licking the oil off whatever leaves remained. I’d lunge at him through the window and he’d look back at me saucily: what then? Don’t make me come out there! He always did. When I’d given up on my deck plantings I would still notice the chili oil bottle out there getting moved around and squirrelhandled, tufts of gray fur sticking to the cap.

Yes, he reproduced mightily. His line of offspring would cascade joyously around my yard, up and down the trees, squealing. They tussled and groomed. They curled up and slept in the crooks of trees. OK, they were cute. But I hated their success and all it signified.

Starting around October squirrels everywhere got a lot more serious. No frolicking; just businesslike caching and hunting and planning. The morning songs had stopped long ago. Other than hearing them in the very walls and ceiling from time to time, when it was frigid outside, my relationship with the squirrels has been cool and distant for months. But I am still carrying quite a bit of baggage into this spring. And am hoping for enlightenment, or stronger peppers.