I have a long-running feud with squirrels.
It started when I first moved to Suffield more than 20 years ago and had to evict a family of seven of them, one by one, from my new home. It has continued as one furry interloper after another takes up residence.
My neighbor has an enormous tree that pumps out a bumper crop of black walnuts for the local sciurus carolinensis population. Starting in late summer, we’re treated to an endless symphony of rodent teeth scratching the husk of the drupe to get to the walnut. Once they acquire their prize, they scurry away and stash it somewhere safe – as in the ceilings and walls of my house.
I have trapped (and relocated) dozens of squirrels. I have repaired endless numbers of holes in my house. I have become an expert in the use of insulation foam as a countermeasure. My ears have become so fine-tuned to any noise that indicates the presence of a squirrel, that one scratch or bump in the wall can wake from a sound sleep a cat-like, wide-eyed, hunter’s instinct within me. Squirrel!
So, when it comes to these critters, I don’t see cute, furry busybodies. I see the enemy.
Which is why last fall, I was surprised this plucky red squirrel came up to me in my yard, apparently unaware of my long-standing antipathy towards his kind, with a hey-buddy-can-you-spare-a-nut expression. I told him I had nothing to give and to beat it.
The next day, he ran up to me again. “I told you, already, I’ve got nothing for you,” I said out loud to a tiny mammal.
This guy was relentless. He approached me so often that I started taking pictures of him with my phone to prove to my family that I was being harassed by this literal pest.
Then, things got weird.
He started to leave a single husked black walnut in the most unusual places: on a table, next to the grill, and the arm of a lawn chair.
“Look,” my wife would say, “your little friend left you something!”
“He’s not my friend!”
As if to emphasize his message and to whom it was addressed, he left me last month a walnut on the welcome mat by the front door.
What do you do when an enemy is undeterred in its quest for peace? There are a number of dark paths that can be taken (and I have contemplated them), but even the most bellicose, in whatever conflicts they are enmeshed, yearn for tranquility if, for no other reason, to finally relax. If the gestures are genuine (and dozens of precious nuts from a squirrel in winter do constitute a sincere overture), then peace must be contemplated.
I have inspected my house. There are no signs of squirrel destruction. The walls and ceilings have been free of any rodent noise. I have slept well.
The other day, my wife took an almond and in the spirit of reciprocation put it on the deck railing.
I guess we’ll give peace a chance.