pic of the day - the demise of the stalking squirrel

There is method to my madness at all times, including the dark, spooky, scary look to this otherwise lovely picture. As you may recall, I mentioned earlier in the week that last summer I played a little game of feed the squirrels at the "All you can eat buffet" hole in my backyard tree. Well, this game progressed over the course of the summer to the point where every time I went out in the backyard, if I didn't put a tomato in the tree, it was like walking through day 59 of a squirrel strike picket line. They became quite vocal, squawking and chattering at me...chasing me. It was quite frightening. Sadly, their rioting turned into stalking. One lovely fall afternoon I had my front door open and I caught Mr. Rocky literally peering in. He was standing on my front porch looking in my front door in a silent demand for food. This became our routine.

Foolish me, I never gave my food obsessed gang of rodents a second thought when the beauty of fall was ushered in and I commenced with decorating for the season. One of my favorite little touches I have added to my house are a pair of lovely front porch lanterns. How wonderful I thought it would be to accentuate the nice lanterns with boughs of Indian corn tied with warm fall ribbon and flowers. It looked so pretty. Until, that is, Mr. Rocky and his crew made the discovery.

I came home from work one day and unassumingly stepped out onto the front porch to retrieve my mail when what seemed like 500 squirrels went zipping and dashing and barking all around me, off the porch, and into the nearby trees. I screamed at the top of my lungs knowing certain death by fuzzy tailed critters was upon me. When my terrified dance ceased upon realizing the threat was past, I realized that little bandits were stripping my pretty Indian corn! Thieves!!!! Hoping that my screaming war dance scared them off for good, I decided to let it go for a day. Besides that, my heart was pounding too hard to do anything then anyway.

The next day as I pulled in to the drive, there wasn't much more than corn cob left on my pretty decorations along with the same 500 squirrels lapping up every last kernel they could find. As I stepped screaming out of the car shooing them away, they scattered in flurry...except for one. The little pest was taunting me, curled up by his tail, hanging from my lantern, teasing me. He squawked. I hollered. He scurried. I threw mulch. Boy was he a jerk. "He must be the pack leader and head bully" I thought. Oh no...he wasn't a jerk or a bully. He was stuck! His tail was caught in my porch light! As I ran inside and peered out at him safely from the window, I could see he already been fighting a loosing battle to try to free himself.

Now, let's add to this little drama the fact that this was a Friday afternoon and I was leaving town for the weekend. I had a squirrel hanging upside down from my front porch light. What was I supposed to do. If I tried to free him, I was certain he would eat & claw my face off. I couldn't knock him in the head. I tried to think of a way to drug him. I looked in the yellow pages, but was pretty sure that "Rick's Critter Gitter" would cost me an arm and a leg. Given my out of town plans, I had no choice but to leave him be and hope with all hope that he would find a way to free himself.

Sadly, my return on Sunday afternoon proved me wrong. Hanging dead upside down from my front porch light along with bare corn cobs and warm fall ribbon and flowers was Mr. Rocky. Just hanging there like a stiff messenger to all the stalking squirrels out there warning them to find another house to stalk. And it all started with a little tomato in a tree hole. How did it get to this? The moral of this story? Don't feed the squirrels.