My Enemy the Squirrel

I can't think of one person who reads this blog who doesn't know I worked at Boy Scout Camps for 5 summers, Trent for many many more. I worked at Camp Loll in 1993 and remember with a fair amount of clarity the whole black bear incident. We had a bear wander into camp, which isn't that unusual in and of itself. A troop failed to lock up their bear box, and said bear helped himself easily to some cookies and milk. Furthermore, one of the staff members kept extra helpings of dessert and such in his tent. So, of course, the bear came back. The bear continued to roam camp causing trouble until the Wyoming State Game and Fish came in and trapped the bear and took him out to relocate him. Add to this the countless times I have heard scouts councelled about hanging their backpacks and not leaving food in them or the animals would chew into them, and you will likely laugh at my utter stupidity.

Last fall, Ashley gathered about 1/2 gallon worth of acorns at the park. She wanted them for some undetermined future project. They have been in the screened in porch in the toy box out there for months, but they were inside a ziplock bag until a few weeks ago. The kids had been out playing and had gotten into them. I knew the bag was open and some of the acorns were spilled out, but I didn't think much of it. Until.......

The last week of February (more than two weeks ago now), Jon, Sami, Trent and I looked out on screened-in porch and noticed a squirrel running around INSIDE the porch. I looked around trying to figure out how it had gotten in but couldn't figure it out. We scared it by our presence, and I had to go out onto the porch, open the door, and systematically scare the squirrel out of the porch. The squirrel managed to get an acorn as it ran out the door. Jon, Sami and I immediately gathered up every acorn and took them out into the trees for the squirrels to have. They gathered them up within hours. No problem right?

Yesterday, I looked out the window and happened to notice a squirrel crawl into the screened-in porch. This time, I saw it enter and noticed that some squirrel had nawed a squirrel size hole into the screen. Not a small size forage in the woods type squirrel. We are talking a big fat grey squirrel. It wasn't there the first time. I looked everywhere then. Even though it has been over two weeks and there has been nothing aloud out there that resembles food, the squirrels still chewed an easy access into the screened-in porch looking for more acorns.

Look, ultimately, it is my own fault. I should have known better than to leave open acorns out there. For now, however, I still choose to blame the squirrel and look upon them not as cute little creatures but as the pests that they are. Did you know squirrels are rodents? Fluffy and cute perhaps, but pesky diabolical rodents.