Freakin' Squirrels...
Yesterday morning before we headed out the door for work, Jeff and I noticed that Mifune and Mingus were glued to the windows that look out on the balcony. We peered out ourselves, only to see a fat squirrel luxuriating in one of the flower boxes, trying to nosh on the plastic berries of the fake greenery we put out as Christmas/winter decorations every year. I didn't want the squirrel to try to eat the plastic and choke or die from toxins or whatever, so I rattled the casement to scare the critter off. This did not set well with the kittehs (they were highly indignant), and it didn't faze the squirrel (who was cooly indifferent), but at least I tried.
Fast forward to this morning, when I opened the front drapes so that Mifune could take advantage of her current favorite lookout spot on the arm of our sofa. There, between the window and the cement balustrade (one of the many that bedeck the windows on our building's facade), lay one of the bunches of fake greenery from the balcony boxes. Alongside it lay a scrap of wire and a couple of small lightbulbs--a portion of the string of icicle lights that made up some of the Christmas decor. (And before I get admonished for keeping the Christmas lights up too long, we haven't turned them on since Epiphany, and it's been too cold to go out there and extricate them from the fake greenery, so there.) Great. So our squirrel friend has destroyed the string of lights and dragged some of the greenery around the entire exterior of the sunroom to the northernmost front window.
Fast forward about ten minutes later, when Jeff and I are leaving the building to scrape the dusting of snow and ice off the car and proceed to work. Beside one of the urns that flank the front steps lay another longer length of masticated icicle lights. We looked up at the balcony boxes, and at least two of the sprigs of faux evergreenery have disappeared from the boxes.
Oh well. I figured this might be the last year for those icicle lights anyway... they were getting long in the tooth. But shoot! I can't imagine the squirrels are so hungry that they are trying to eat fake foliage and electrical wire! Especially when you consider how relatively mild a winter it's been here in Chicago and how zaftig the little rodents are at this point in the year.
Guess I'd better add "take in Christmas decorations" to my list of weekend tasks... Sigh.
Fast forward to this morning, when I opened the front drapes so that Mifune could take advantage of her current favorite lookout spot on the arm of our sofa. There, between the window and the cement balustrade (one of the many that bedeck the windows on our building's facade), lay one of the bunches of fake greenery from the balcony boxes. Alongside it lay a scrap of wire and a couple of small lightbulbs--a portion of the string of icicle lights that made up some of the Christmas decor. (And before I get admonished for keeping the Christmas lights up too long, we haven't turned them on since Epiphany, and it's been too cold to go out there and extricate them from the fake greenery, so there.) Great. So our squirrel friend has destroyed the string of lights and dragged some of the greenery around the entire exterior of the sunroom to the northernmost front window.
Fast forward about ten minutes later, when Jeff and I are leaving the building to scrape the dusting of snow and ice off the car and proceed to work. Beside one of the urns that flank the front steps lay another longer length of masticated icicle lights. We looked up at the balcony boxes, and at least two of the sprigs of faux evergreenery have disappeared from the boxes.
Oh well. I figured this might be the last year for those icicle lights anyway... they were getting long in the tooth. But shoot! I can't imagine the squirrels are so hungry that they are trying to eat fake foliage and electrical wire! Especially when you consider how relatively mild a winter it's been here in Chicago and how zaftig the little rodents are at this point in the year.
Guess I'd better add "take in Christmas decorations" to my list of weekend tasks... Sigh.
Labels: crazy kittehs, freakin' squirrels, to-do lists
posted by Cathy VanPatten at 3:37 PM
4 Comments:
LOL. Thanks for the laugh this afternoon, Cathy - I needed it!
I haven't been this ticked at a squirrel since the little buggers chomped off all the flowers I was growing from seed on the balcony lo, these many years ago. I learned my lesson then--only plant already established annuals out there. And nothing with berries (don't get me started on the strawberries!).
Of course, Jeff has to contend with the squirrel that sits on the wires in the alley right outside the windows of Jeff's "fort" (the enclosed back porch) and screams his little lungs out.
Ah, city life!
Maybe since it's warmish they think it's nest building time. Maybe your Christmas decorations will end up as part of a squirrel home in a nearby tree. :)
LOL, Beth! You may be right!
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