The man next door vs. the determined squirrel

By Pocket:

I spent a good part of Friday with Foley sitting by the big windows by our deck watching the tall man who lives next-door battle out most troublesome enemies, the squirrel. The man was putting up his bird feeders. Foley and I have no quarrel with small birds, and as many of you know, we have a wonderful relationship with the neighborhood Canadian geese who we use to deliver our poop-on-you awards.

Before he put up his bird feeders he decided to make them squirrel proof. First he took used ups of sour cream and he cut a hole in them, and worked them down the trunk of the tree. Foley and I looked at one another skeptically. He did this several times. Then he had these plastic things, they looked like flying saucers, or maybe upside down birdbaths, and the put them on poles that he had stuck in the ground.

By the time he was done every tree either had a flying saucer or a upside down sour cream cup. Then he took a wire and strung it between two trees. Then he took barbed wire and attached it to the wire between the trees. Every time he did this he had to go up and down a ladder, up and down.

Finally he picked up the two feeders and hung in the middle of his line of barbed wire. He then stepped back with a self-satisfied look on his face admiring his work, which made our pretty back yard look like a place where aliens had landed to raid our sour cream farm.

He went inside and seconds later two squirrels came out of the woods and began pacing back and forth looking at the bird feeders. They stopped, pointed up, discussed the situation. They tried running up the trunks but we stymied by the sour cream cups and flying sauces. They got to the wire but were stopped by the sharp barbs. They went back on the ground and huddled to discuss the situation. For the first time in our lives Foley and I were rooting for the squirrels.

Then one of them got right underneath the feeder which was about four feet off the ground. He got up on his hind legs, shook his butt a little, and then took off like a rocket, grabbing a hold of the feeder with his claws, pulling himself up, and eating the feed and emptying the rest on the ground for his friend.

Our neighbor came out a short time later, hands on hips, one of those cartoon “fuming” things over his head. We are sure he will be back at work tomorrow trying to stop the squirrels. We think the entire situation will culminate on network TV when the Deustche Bank Open takes place down the road in Norton MA.

By that time our neighbor will have laid dynamite under the ground to stop the squirrels and he will set it off just as Tiger Woods shorts the winning putt by a quarter inch when the earth begins to shake and the ball falls into the hole causing Tiger to win Caddyshack style. And when you see that happen, think of Foley and I, and say well, their neighbor finally got that squirrel.

And then, seconds later, the squirrels will appear, jump on to the fielder, and eat all his food. Rock on squirrels, we have to chase you when we see you, but we’ll still root for you.