Yeah, we are that family. We sort of always have been. We fill bird feeders in the back yard often, knowing that the neighborhood squirrels empty them as fast as we can fill them. We don't care. Let the little boogers get fat and survive the winter on us. It's okay. While neighbor T's black walnut tree was healthy (it died suddenly this year), Mr S-P collected the walnuts and set them out periodically on the tops of the fence posts, for the squirrels to eat. It is totally in character for us. We are the people who tried to save a baby squirrel in Charleston, bringing it inside, and staying up all night trying to keep it warm enough to eat. I was devastated when that squirrel (who I named Edmund) didn't make it.
So it should come as no surprise that we are quite fond of the squirrels here. We don't tend to try to touch them or anything. (Don't squirrels in the American West carry plague or something?) But we care for them from a distance and we are endlessly amused by their antics. I think it's hilarious when they show up on the window sills, more to freak out the cats than anything else. I used to feel bad when Bumpy would chase them off. When we donated a giant bag of pecans that we had left over from Charleston to the Greenwood wild animal rehab center, the Mr held back a bowlful to give to the locals. He didn't just give the pecans to our yard squirrels. He made sure they knew exactly where they were coming from, pitching them through a gap in the sliding glass door, blocking the opening with a foot so our cats couldn't race out on a murder mission.
After enough attempts at this, a couple of squirrels have really figured out the hustle, and they'll come daintily up to the stairs to grab them from the back stoop. To date, it had just been the Mr's thing, and I only watched. That is, until today, when I was home alone and the cats alerted me to a shaggy little kid peeking over the top step, wondering whether there was anything on the menu for a squirrel. I got up from the dining room table, grabbed a hazelnut, and popped it through a gap in the door. The squirrel had run off, and the cats were ready to spring. The nut bounced on the top stair and fell down to the patio. The squirrel was starting to come get it, when Murray blew up the party. Once Murray lost interest, I tried again with a pecan, making a point of tapping it so the squirrel could hear, and then setting it gently on the ratty doormat where Bump used to sleep. Shaggy the squirrel walked the long way around Murray, and came in from the north to retrieve it. She ran off back to the fence, ostensibly to bury it somewhere she could find it later. A few minute later, she came back. I got another hazelnut, and this time was more careful where it went. I was still standing in view of the door when she came to acquire it. She put the whole thing in her mouth, went down one stair, and then turned around to look at me. You cannot convince me that she wasn't thanking me in that moment. Eventually I went out and got that first hazelnut, and we exchanged that as well. She looked through the window for a fourth one, and I told her that three were plenty for today.
I wish I'd had the camera ready the whole time, especially when she showed up on the woodpile next to my dressing room window. I heard a crash while Harvey was climbing over my sewing machine to chase her off. The best I could do was take a couple of shots through the sliding glass door, that is still filthy from the last time Hops came to visit. I get the feeling I'll have another chance.
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