SCORE SHEET: SQUIRRELS VS. ME

I fell in love, early on, with squirrels when I first read Beatrix Potter's illustrated story of Squirrel Nutkin. The effect of the illustrations was stronger than the text. I cannot describe exactly what the feeling was. C.S. Lewis, perhaps, said it more accurately. The story and pictures gave him a sense of Autumness. I don't have a sense of Autumness here in June, but the squirrels start out ahead. Score one for them.

Potter's squirrel was what I would call a red fox squirrel. At least the ink in the printing was more red than gray. The four squirrels that get much of my attention now are gray. I've seen four at one time. That's how I arrived at the number. They may be quadruplets. One, however, has had the fur skinned from the left side of his tail, if you're facing him. I semi-affectionately call him Half-Shaved which has deteriorated into Hafshad. The others are mentally and interchangeably called Problem No. 1, Problem No. 2 and Problem No. 3. I don't know which Problem I'm talking to as I go dashing out the back door, slamming it angrily and muttering meanly.

I hate to be outwitted by a member of the rodent family. You see, I abandoned my main feeder for big birds because my hollyhocks came up around it and I want them to be unblemished. So I suspended another feeder from a limb of the nearby oak tree. Thought I was being clever when the suspension device was a slick plastic-coated clothesline wire. They can't grab it, I thought. If they do they'll slide down and be so scared they will jump off.

The squirrels came down, head first as usual. They even stopped halfway down to stare at me as if to say, "Lookie!" Score 2 for the squirrels.

I put a large sheet of stiff cardboard at the end of the string -- stiff, but not so stiff as to support the weight of a squirrel. It would make him slide off to the ground. I had to slit the cardboard to the center or else do an hour of untwisting wires. To reinforce the cardboard I slit a foil pie pan and slipped it over the end of the dangling wire. There now!

Hours passed. More hours. Score 1 for me.

I had to go to town. When I returned the cardboard and pie pan were way off in the yard somewhere. The sunflower seeds were all gone. Hafshad was sitting up on a limb, belly puffed out and switching his half-shaved tail. Erase my 1 and score 3 for the squirrels.

I had quite a lot of the plastic-coated wire so I made something that resembled a long, wiry, thick tumbleweed. I arranged it all up and down Suspension Road. I watched a squirrel start down, try to get through the maze, got scared and retreated. Ah, ha, score 1 for me again.

That wiry maze lasted for a day. Next morning when I got up there were two long furry tails hanging down from the feeder! I thought of slipping out with a piece of twine and tying those tails together a la Sampson and the foxes. I didn't want to get bitten though, but maybe just tweak those tails and stand back. I walked slowly toward them and saw them slip upward through the maze as slick as a tunnel through hog liver. Erase my re-claimed 1 and score 4 for the squirrels.

I took the unsightly, wiry bramble down, went to the bird house store, only to find that a squirrel proof, big bird feeder was $50. Limply, I left murmuring that "Oh, well, squirrels have to eat too, and $50 could buy a lot of sunflower seed. Why not just fatten them up to decrease their agility and dumb'em down a bit?"

I have a cute squirrel feeder. You put an ear of corn on a spike in a little round table affair. The picture on the container showed a squirrel eating the corn and it is just as if he's sitting at a table minding his manners. Why don't they use that?

I left the bird feeder empty for three days, depriving myself of watching the colorful cardinals and blue jays fly in but thinking the squirrels would find greener pastures elsewhere and stay there. On the fourth morning I put seeds back in the feeder and half an hour later there were not only two dangling from the feeder, but Hafshad sitting on top, awaiting his turn.

Final score: Squirrels, 5. Me, O.

REJOICE!