When my grandfather died in April, I inherited his car and along with it the curse of the squirrel. Grandpa spent years trying to outwit a squirrel that emptied his backyard bird feeder every time he filled it. The closest he got was stringing a supposedly squirrel-proof bird feeder on a rope between two trees. The feeder sat in the middle of the rope, which was at least forty feet long and five feet off the ground and hung in the middle of the yard away from anything that could serve as a jumping off point for a squirrel. The feeder itself was designed with a half dome upside down over the top so that any animal coming from above would slide off trying to access the bird seed in the tray below. Grandpa was very proud of this contraption and thought he had finally outwitted his nemesis. However, the bird seed disappeared in no time just like it always had. After several stakeouts, he finally caught the squirrel in the act. The squirrel scampered across the rope to the bird feeder and then hung upside down using his back paws to hold onto the top of the feeder while his body stretched over the dome and his front paws grabbed the bird seed. He never did win the war with the squirrel.
One day I was looking in the glove box of my recently inherited car when I came across small stuffed squirrel that my cousin gave my grandfather as a joke. A few weeks later, I planted my summer pots on our small deck, which passes of lots of outdoor space in the city. I planted tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers. The first time I went out to water the pots, I noticed that something had been digging in the basil and geranium and had thrown the dirt onto the deck. I had no idea what was causing the mess until a week later when I saw a squirrel happily chucking dirt out of my lavender. I thought of Grandpa as I banged on the glass door and yelled at the squirrel to get out of my pots. This was first of many visits that I saw, and there was evidence of many more that I did not witness.
Each time I see the squirrel, she gets bolder. Within a couple weeks, I saw here in my geranium and when she saw me coming to the door, she just looked up at me and stared. I quietly called one of my dogs that I spent six months breaking of the squirrel chasing habit over as I began to unlock the door and said "get the squirrel." By the time I got the door unlocked and he rushed out, the squirrel had scampered up a gutter and sat on the edge of a wall looking right at me and munching on whatever it is that she eats from my pots. She was letting me know that I will never win the war. And, I realized that I don't want to because every time I see her terrorizing my garden I get a smile and think of Grandpa.
