Squirrels

I love my front porch! My husband bought this white wicker (actually it’s PVC, but looks very much like wicker, even up close) for me for Mother’s Day 2 years ago. It is such a nice place to sit and read a book to my children, or sit and chat with the neighbors. I feel like it’s a very Southern traditional front porch. Since moving to the south 14 years ago, I have adopted some southern traditions I really like. Besides sitting on the front porch, I am learning to enjoy the southern tradition of having your children address you with “yes, ma’am”, “no, ma’am”. It is so formal, and sets the correct tone that you’re trying to achieve.

Growing up in the Midwest, when I first moved down here, it was a totally foreign thought to me. I did not grow up calling my mom “ma’am”. So it took me a while for the “sound” of it to sound right. But after 14 years, it has really grown on me, and now with 2 young boys, it really WORKS for commanding respect. As an example, when I ask one of my children to do something and they mumble, or answer disrespectfully, I say, “Yes, Ma’am!”, and all of life goes on hold until they repeat it. Then, everything changes to respectful again. It’s almost like magic!

Anyway, back to my front porch…

I have a lot of potted plants on my porch, which I religiously fertilize, water, prune, and turn (1/4 turn every week) so as to be the most perfect porch plants available. But the squirrels and I are archenemies on my front porch. Every morning I get up to find dirt all over my porch, acorns buried in my potted plants, and plants dying because the squirrels have dug them up again!

One recent afternoon, I vented to my neighbor about the squirrel problem and how they cause my blood pressure to remain high. A few days later, my boys and I found a dead squirrel under a tree that borders our property. The death was obviously caused by a pellet through the middle. We buried it. One less squirrel to wreak havoc on my porch! I did happen to take note that it was not a mommy nursing squirrel, as we had one who was want to sit on my chair on the front porch and look in the living room window at me. I did have a twinge of sadness while burying this poor thing.

A few days after that, we noticed a little baby squirrel coming down the tree alone. I remarked at how I’d never seen such a small squirrel out without its mommy. My daughter was able to reach out a hand and get the squirrel to climb right into her gloved hand! Our soft-hearted neighbor, who shot the first squirrel, witnessed this event. He said something to my daughter about her having a new pet. When she told me about the conversation, I knew he was probably feeling terrible for killing the squirrel a few days ago, thinking it was this little guy’s mother. The next day his wife came over to sit with us on the front porch to socialize, and I was able to let her know that her husband didn't kill the mommy to this little orphan. She said he had muttered several times that he didn't know it was the season for baby squirrels.

Now I have a pet baby squirrel in my home, that my daughter is feeding puppy milk with an eye dropper! How’s that for ironic?!

Tomorrow I will post my daughter's journal entries on being a mommy to a baby squirrel.