Tales of the Squirrel

Part 1

A few days back, I was determined to find out and get rid of the little feet we were hearing in our living room ceiling.  They were especially raucous when the TV was on at nighttime.  Apparently, it must have woken them up and made them hostile, whoever they were.

My daughter begged for their lives and I am softy anyways so my cousin and I bought some "have a heart" mouse traps thinking it had to be mice since Bobby was told by an expert that squirrel hibernate all winter. (at least if they don't have TV below them).  So I started by trying to remove the light fixtures hoping to get up in the ceiling.  The first living room light took me 5 minutes to take down only to realize a large metal box blocked any hopes of getting through.  It then took me about 30 minutes to get it back up again with very tenuous screw fittings and one bulb that suddenly didn't work.  I gave up that night.  The next night, we took a different light out of the ceiling.  My cousin was able to bend back some metal so that we could not only set the traps but place a video camera and a battery operated light to see who it was we had for guests.  The peanut butter had a strong smell and within 5 minutes, we had a cute little squirrel jumping all over the place. Only trouble was, it was either too smart for the traps or it didn't fit.  We baited the outside with a little Peanut butter just to get the critters hooked.  As we watched the video, we saw the squirrel hit the little trap doors so it could no longer get at the peanut butter.  Of course it did what any self respecting nut gatherer would do.  One by one it picked up the traps and dragged them away into the darkness of my ceiling to be used as house furniture or as conversation pieces. 

The next day my cousin and I went to the big Paris Animal Feed hardware store; determined to by a squirrel trap that would certainly capture the creature without killing it.  For just under $20 we bought the long cage with dual doors and all sorts of springs and levers.  We were very proud of ourselves.  Of course it didn't fit into the hole all the way.  The inner ceiling was to low and our trap too long; we did what anyone with a too long trap would do.  We stuck it in as far as it would go, Braced the bottom end with two boxes on top of our bookcases, fired up the camera, lit up the lights and watched. As squirrel would approach the strange metal contraption that was smeared with peanut butter, you could tell they were very alert.  The first Squirrel used its tail and back feet to keep the trap lid open as it stretched out and ate all of the peanut butter inside.  Apparently because the trap was tilted down at a 45-degree angle, they weren't willing to just jump in.

On the next attempt we put the peanut butter at the farthest end so that they couldn't just hang in and get the good stuff. Watching the video, we not only saw two squirrels jumping all over the trap, one actually got shut in as it gorged itself on that brown creamy dessert.  When it was done eating it opened the "trap door" and went about it's business showing us who were the real mice in this game.

Last night I reset the trap with a feeling of "oh well, at least the hole is being blocked by something".  This morning I find the trap dislodged and the cat acting very suspicious. Obviously the cat had made it to top of the bookcase and had the idea of getting up into that hole. At this point, however, we noticed something was behind the toy soldier display case and the cat was going bonkers trying to get at it. There we found a Squirrel holding on for dear life.  Apparently it had met the cat earlier.  I put on some gloves at the urging of my wife who thought I’d surely be bitten and get rabies, and managed to carefully slide the case out so the squirrel would drop.  I had my daughter, Casey put the cat in the cellar just as the squirrel ran behind the nearby bookcase that resided underneath the former light fixture’s now gaping hole.

I went to the garage and found a small butterfly net and asked my wife, Bea and daughter, Casey to guard it from running to the entertainment center.  Fortunately the carpet had just been washed so most of the furniture was still in the kitchen.  I had them open the hall door and the outside door.  I went to the tightest side of the bookcase and began thrashing with the net until the Squirrel finally gave run.  Bea and Casey stood their ground screaming a high pierced scream like no other banshee could make. I am sure the heart of that squirrel nearly exploded as it ran for the door.  Instead of going through it properly, the most direct line was the crack between the wall and hinge.  It had some difficulty but I can still recall it's little butt all bunged up until it finally squeezed through and then ran out into the snow.  As the girls laughed tears of relief, I imagined that the squirrel made a B-line for the same hole in my house it found to begin with.  It's probably plotting my demise as I type from some high warm perch even now.

Tales of the Squirrel

Part 2

Well things had quieted down for a while. My friends Robert and Luke located a small hole that a woodpecker has started and my cousin bob filled in with brillo pads and plastic wood.  Our video gear was taken down and the lamp replaced albeit a little worn around the edges.  Of course we knew there was at least one more little guy or girl fuzzball running amok between the floors.  I figured we’d get the living room back to some sort of normalcy for a little while.  And that’s just what it was, a little while.  Just the other day, my daughter woke up to scratching just behind her closet door or so she thought.  I guess the critters don’t like being caged in without access to food and water.

Well it was back to battle plan A.  I was determined to see my metal contraption of a trap do it’s work so we moved out the shelf, popped out the light built up the boxes, loaded the trap with dripping creamy peanut butter and planted the perfect trap.  For what ever reason, I was completely confident that it would work flawlessly, I even announced to my wife that we should just wait for 30 minutes and we would have our little rodent alla Skippy.  Well let’s just say that we all went to bed after having shared family quality time with the flashlight. 

It was 6:00am when my daughter burst in the bedroom to wake me and tell me that we were the proud parents of a baby squirrel.  I had get up immediately as my wife and daughter were sure it was going to get out somehow plus they just wanted to see it close up to do a victory dance.  My wife called it right, the long bushy tale and huge eyes proved that he was in a fact a baby squirrel.  Not only that, he was a flying baby squirrel. 

Considering that our last furry friend was definitely a squirrel, these guys were either keeping each other warm or fighting over crawl space.  Well, after showing him off to a few friends and neighbors, I finally let him out in the snowy woods about 20 miles from my house.  He bolted like a rabbit out of the cage but I threw some more crackers at him anyway hoping that he wouldn’t freeze to death.

I know this all sounds rather dull.  Big deal! The cage worked and I got a baby squirrel. Alright fine, be that way.  How about this…..

A few nights ago, my wife, Bea, fell asleep in the comfy chair watching a sitcom.  Cassandra was asleep and I had resided to the bathroom for some heavy reading.  Apparently the cat had seen another critter enter the trap only to be caught.  In Pepe the cat’s mind, it seemed that this was a unique opportunity. Its first task was use to my wife’s sleeping head as a launching pad to the toy soldier cabinet.  This resulted in a ubiquitous shriek from her.  Before she knew what hit her, the cat leaped flawlessly onto the stacked boxes and batted the trap off its high perch.  The trap and its trappee, went for an 8 foot drop on the floor.  Again my wife screamed only to witness both doors open and the flight of its tenant.  For 5 minutes it was the Tom and Jerry show.  My wife was on the chair, and I had finally wrapped up after hearing all the smashing, yelling and crashing as the cat bulldozed every knickknack, lampshade or DVD case it happened to run over.  Fortunately for Tom (the Squirrel) Jerry had it’s front claws removed so being whacked by the cat was more like being hit by a boxing glove as a opposed to ripping talons.  At this point I was Butterfly Net ready. And whack! I had that little guy nailed to the top of Bea’s chair pretty darn quick.  This really worked in the Squirrels favor as it finally had a chance to catch its breath. 

Bea held the cat as she went for a large plastic bucket. Just as I tried untangling the little guy to drop him in the bucket, he took off once again.  This time he went for the heated baseboard behind the couch.  Both PePe the cat and I searched over and over only to find a little fury fatty roll sticking out at the very end.  I was thankful as I am sure was the baby squirrel that the heat was on low and that we weren’t all playing out some scene where we had to walk on Charcoals or hang from a steaming pipe.  It took me a little time but thanks to Bea and her rabies saving gloves, I was able to stop the rodent from constantly running back and forth by jamming the gloves in to form roadblocks.  I then took the butterfly net and flattened it out just he popped out of baseboard and made a dive for the center of the net.  I gleefully grabbed the net and tightened all the way to the furry fellow so that he looked like a tiny fuzz ball. 

Of course I had to get my daughter up so that she could see and touch the little prisoner.  The cat was very jealous although I did show him the living fuzz ball as well.  Cassandra slowly made her way down but woke up as we tried to get him out of the net and into the white bucket without losing him again.  After plopping him in, Bea made a hole on the screw on cap.  For whatever reason, the hole made the entire cap rather week and soon the baby squirrel was halfway through it.  I brought down the net and then added an old dirty black sneaker to top it off.   Cassandra wanted to make sure he had plenty of food so she took a handful hardened animal crackers and we opened it just for the moment.  With no chitter chatter form our guest, we called it a night and the next day I let it free on the other side of the river.

The End