By JANET HART LEONARD
From the Hart
The line has been crossed. The battle is on.
I see him sitting outside my window. He’s staring at me, perched atop the shepherd’s hook. I’m trying to drink my coffee and read the newspaper. He is trying to intimidate me. He is quite the strange window peeper. He’s been giving me the evil eye.
He is a squirrel.
Over the past few months, he has kept us entertained, climbing the shepherd’s hook as if it was his personal trapeze.
You need to understand that our birdfeeder is supposedly “squirrel-proof.” Someone has not informed Bushy of that information. Yes, we have named him. He has a huge bushy tail … thus the name.
Bushy scampers to the top of the shepherd’s hook and hangs upside down and stretches to reach the openings of the feeder. We’ve been feeding him whether we like it or not. I must say he is quite the contortionist.
This little trapeze artist will look through the window and give us the evil eye if the birdfeeder needs filling. Due to the bird virus, we have not been feeding the birds … or the squirrels.
Bushy is not happy and this week he went beyond giving us the evil eye. He attacked my “soon-to-be blooming” sunflower – my first one that I had grown from a wild seed dropped into my garden.
That little rascal jumped from the garden trellis onto the defenseless young sunflower and broke it … and I was not happy.
My friend, Susan, was sitting at my kitchen table and saw him. He was dragging the entire four-foot stalk and leaves were scattered as he ran across my lawn. Lickety-split. I took off out the front door, ready for battle.
My thought was “OK buddy, the line has been crossed.”
While I had actually felt guilty for not feeding the birds and an occasional squirrel, my guilt for this particular squirrel vanished upon seeing him sitting across the alley and staring at me. I believe I saw a smirk on his face.
I have researched how to avoid further damage from squirrels. I do not want to harm him. I just want him to leave my flowers alone. I didn’t cause the bird virus. I just have to obey the warnings by the DNR. I’ve told him that.
If I wasn’t upset enough when I saw the destruction of my tall sunflower, I had even more of a come apart when I saw he had also attacked my sunflower bush. There were several petals scattered on the ground. Oh my goodness!
Chuck was my hero and put up a screen that protected the surviving petals on the sunflower bush. If he breaks through that we may have to do a relocation eviction. He’s been given notice.
He has to understand he has crossed the line and I am not afraid of a good fight. Put up your dukes. Bushy. The war is on.