A while back I wrote an article called, The Great Mouse Invasion, telling the true tale of how we had an overrun of mice around our farm. When we finally woke up to what was happening, there were literally hundreds of mice living in the barn and chicken coop, with more than enough moving into the house itself. We set traps like crazy and caught dozens of mice, but they just kept coming. Well, this article is about the great squirrel invasion that has recently begun to bombard this area. Squirrels are fun to watch, as they run up and down and around and around in the treetops, but they are just a little less fun to watch when they happily drop rock-hard pine cones on your head.
We have a semi-domesticated friendly squirrel whom we have named "Snot-blossom". Snot-blossom will sit up in a tree and chortle at us whenever we go outside to do chores. Then she parks herself in a pine tree directly overhead and starts picking cones off the tree which she uses to bomb us. If there are no pine cones she will sit there and loudly lecture us for not allowing her the pleasure of hurting us. Snot-blossom also has a large family of Ne'er-do-wells who do their very best to follow her example. A squirrel in a tree, minding its own business is fine. The only problem is, squirrels never mind their own business. They have to get in the way and help you mind your business while all the time lecturing you about how you are doing it all wrong.
We have a problem with mouse traps simply disappearing on us, only to re-appear several days later, far away from their original position, and usually with broken parts. We used to wonder what was causing this to happen, speculating on whether or not it could be rats, or something even bigger like a 'possum. Now, we wonder no more. Squirrels are wonderful little do-it-yourselfers and are also curious as all get out. When a mouse trap wanders off it usually has help of a most squirrely kind. This is not a problem if you are CEO of a major mouse trap manufacturer, but for the rest of us, it can be a challenge keeping up with it all.
I can't help but wonder if there is a group of squirrels out there somewhere that all have injuries to their paws or something like that, from mouse traps that have gone off from a curious touch. Now, we're certainly not cruel people, and we don't like to hurt an animal unnecessarily, but it's hard to avoid when the squirrels are setting off the traps almost faster than you can set them. We once tried using a live trap to capture a rogue squirrel that kept getting into our attic. The first time the trap went off we thought it was a marvelous signal that our troubles were over. The sixth time the trap went off, however, our mood was of a slightly different nature. It seems that we kept catching the same squirrel over and over again.
Apparently it was fun for the animal to get caught in the trap, be carried down the attic stairs, and out of the house, to be released. Each time it was caught it acted a little calmer and more tamed. Every time we released that squirrel, we would hear a heavy scampering on the roof again, then a squeaking noise as the squirrel found the evasive opening at the edge of the roof. Then it would run across the attic floor and the next sound we would hear was the trap door clicking shut over its happy quarry. We finally had to take our "pet" squirrel for a long hike in the woods and release it at a fair distance from the house. As far as I know, we have never had a squirrel in the attic since. Apparently, the poor thing forgot where we were. This is not surprising, considering that I have heard that they sometimes forget where they parked their winter stash of food too.
Naturally, we never did locate that squirrel's portal into our world, but we patched up the roof with sheets of metal, basically covering all our bases in the process. Now, instead of being able to get into the attic, our "pet" squirrels climb the screens on the outside of the windows, as if they were eager to get inside and make themselves to home. This is better than television to a cat, and we have three of those in the house. They go absolutely nuts trying to attack that squirrel that sits on the outside of the window, clinging to the screen and teasing them unmercifully. It's like it is saying, "ha, ha. You can't eat me." Or it might be saying, "hey cat! What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" This is the reason why you will never see any squirrel comedians on the stage.
Yes, squirrels are cute, fuzzy and funny, not to mention seriously hyper, but they are also destructive, overly curious and daring, with an apparent death wish a mile long. So, if your mouse traps wander off, or livestock takes up residence in your attic, or there are mysterious pine cone attacks on your person----you probably are suffering from an extreme case of the squirrels. You need to see a doctor immediately....preferably a veterinarian.
