Critters, 1 - Jan, 0

Who would have thought?

Thought what?

Stay tuned, my saga begins to unfold…

Our semi-rural neighborhood is gifted with all sorts of wildlife. At my recently sold house, I was one of those suckers who fed deer, year-round. Surrounded by woods , and all the edible deer goodies, I persisted, nonetheless. The little girl in me just loved seeing real-live deer! My usual practice was to keep a, thick-bodied, plastic cooler on my porch, containing deer corn. This way, I could throw on my bathrobe in the morning, open the front door, lift the top on the cooler, and toss goodies out, keeping myself and the deer happy. Until one morning….

I opened the front door and found this:

Even so early in the morning, a number of expletive deleteds initiated my conversation with the universe about this invasion, or whatever it was. My god, the cooler top was so thick! How the heck…..

Back to the bedroom to put on real clothes. I’m not sure why but hey, I did anyway. Came back to the front door, reopened, and lo and behold, saw this:

Whoa! I’d already run through my expletive deleteds earlier, so a couple of loud “whoa’s” was about all I could muster. Oh my God, I didn’t even have my glasses on, so back to the bedroom I went

Returned to find the unavoidable truth.

Absolutely, wow! My sheer admiration for the squirrel’s persistence outweighed my “what the F did you do to my cooler.” I just stood there staring, goggle-eyed, until the squirrel got on with its day.

Over the course of the next year and a half, squirrels, twice, used the wiring on the undercarriage of my car as snacking material. My local auto repair shop became very fond of me. Then there was wiring on the side of my house, and, guess what? Yep, you guessed it. Chewed through. After installing a new roof and gutters, and having been assured there were no openings for animal access, I began to hear wild tango’s in the attic, late at night. Uh, huh. You got that one, too.

Animal Control did a good job of finding and plugging the small access hole that the nightly squirrel tango-ers were using to party and get my attention. More bucks out the door.

Oy, what did I ever do to squirrels?

Continuing to curse at the squirrels did my blood pressure no good. I gave up and saw the light. Those furry, toothy, little critters, so small of body, have what appears to be, outsized persistence. I admire their sheer gusto for life, aerial acrobatics, and the drive to survive. Personally, I want MORE of that. Huzzahs to all the squirrels out there for modeling the kind of joyful persistence I’d like in my life.