Another mouth to feed!
At my mom’s house there are two large white oaks in the front yard. Squirrels in the yard were a common site, especially after she began putting peanuts out for them. She eventually stopped doing that after my brother came home to discover that a squirrel had chewed through the screen on his bedroom window and was sitting on his bed, waiting for a hand out.
This is when I began calling him Squirrel Boy. Frankie and I even went so far as to make him a T-shirt that read “They call me Squirrel Boy!” across the back and had this image on the front.
Being the oldest, and arguably the meanest, of six siblings I have been known to saddle each one of them with nicknames, usually after they’ve done something spectacularly funny…..or stupid……and made the mistake of letting me find out about it.
He didn’t seem to mind the new moniker too much at first. In fact he was happy that people finally stopped calling him Gorilla Lips. (This being a family blog I won’t go into that.)
Then his drinking buddies began asking about the real reason that rodent was in his bed.
I thought that was hilarious!
He did not.
But I digress.
In June 2004 my family moved to Southwestern Virginia where Frankie, our daughter and I settled into small town life in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Squirrel Boy stayed behind to try to live down his perceived perversion earn another nickname so people would stop looking at him that way! in the hope that people would stop asking how he came to be known as Squirrel Boy.
So far they haven’t.
MWAHAHAHAHA!
It wasn’t until we had been here for a few months that I realized I hadn’t seen many squirrels even though our yard backs up to a heavily wooded ridge. We’ve seen a lot of whitetail deer, chipmunks, possums, raccoons and even the occasional coyote or black bear in the backyard but never any squirrels.
That changed this afternoon.
I’m not making the same mistake my mom made. This little guy seems content to eat sunflower seeds that have fallen from the feeders in Burd Town.
We’re not putting out any peanuts!
I’m not waking up with any squirrels in my bed!
On the Wild Side
Part 4 of my journey through the images I’ve been lucky enough to capture since taking up photography as a hobby two years ago. Nearly all were shot in and around Wythe County, Virginia, many of them in our back yard. Some evenings we have whitetail deer within 10 yards of the house and my wife’s feeder collection (I call it Burd Town.) always draws a crown to the maple tree right outside our bedroom window.
For larger views of any image just click on the thumb in the gallery below.
