UPDATE: The squirrel has disappeared. Oliver noted that it was there one minute and gone the next, so we're hoping it recovered from the fall and scampered off to join its brethren.
That thar is a baby squirrel that might have fallen out of a tree that I nearly backed over but noticed as I walked to my car. I didn't scream out loud, but I screamed in my mind. In case you didn't know this about me, I'm a city girl. In fact, many moons ago, I had a roommate during my sophomore year in college who was a sweet, sweet young woman from Beulahville, North Carolina. Despite the fact that she had a Jesus is Lord Carolina blue frisbee pinned to her side of the room and I was the type gal who sometimes slept the night out, she never judged me nor tried to save me, and we became great friends. One weekend, she invited me to her home in Beulahville, and since I was dying to go to such a bucolic-sounding place and knew that I'd eat delicious food, I accepted. Her daddy was a turkey farmer -- he didn't have turkeys out in the dirt, pecking around (or is that chickens) but rather housed them in several vast football field sized barns. When you stepped inside, the din was outrageous. I think some people even wore earphones. There might have been millions of turkeys crowded in this giant barn, and the feathers were flying, the stench was outrageous, and I believe I raised my hands up to my ears and stood there stupefied. This was so many moons ago that I don't think we had expressions like organic farming or free-range, so when I stepped into those barns with my hands over my ears, a bit green at the edges, my roommate's daddy just hooted and hollered at me. He had the thickest of North Carolina accents and was as sweet as sugar on a stick, as my Alabama friend Sybil used to say, and later that day when he fiddled with his radio, he screamed at me, How'd ya like to get on my ham radio, city girl?
Anywho.
That squirrel.
After screaming in my mind, I noticed that it was still moving so I ran inside and got Saint Mirtha who not only watches Sophie most Saturdays but is good in a pinch for things like taking a brown paper bag and scooping up a baby squirrel. I disappeared in my sexy Mazda and went to Trader Joe's, but not before posting that photo on Facebook with a request for advice on what to do. I got a bushel o' advice, my favorites being get it the hell outside from a friend in Nashville who apparently doesn't know me that well and thought I had brought the thing in my house, and Here in Texas they'd just throw him in the stew from a southern friend who always makes me laugh. Mostly people were helpful and suggested that I call wildlife rescue, and a few people kindly sent me websites that detailed How to Care for a Baby Squirrel, and when I opened up those links, I screamed again in my mind and immediately felt bad that I'm really not as good of a person as I might seem because, really, the last thing I want to do is nurse a baby squirrel back to life, even if it is dying a slow death on a bag on my front lawn.
Where, where are the coyotes that come down out of the Hollywood hills and kill small dogs?***
***I can't even imagine what Anonymous thinks of me now.
Ha! I can't imagine what I'd do. Here in the city, squirrels are psychotic. I think it's all the pesticides they spray on trees in parks. They're not the least bit wary of humans. Call the animal rescue people, I think.
ReplyDeleteToo much nature.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I'd probably leave it be to see if its mother came and got it. If not, I'd just let it...uh, die?
Once though, right behind my porch, a mother squirrel came running down a tree, screaming like a banshee. A snake had grabbed her baby and she was ready to do battle. It was way too much nature and the snake slithered off to digest the baby squirrel and the mother screamed and cried and it was really horrible.
But, you know- nature. Bloody in both tooth and claw. Or whatever.
Squirrels are nothing but rats with fluffy tails.
ReplyDeletePage said he picked up the squirrel wearing gloves then nestled it in his baseball glove then wrapped it in a blanket and put it in a box then kept it under his car so hawks couldn't get at it. He fed it cooked oatmeal and eventually the squirrel got going and he hung around our yard for a couple of years.
ReplyDeleteWhen four babies fell from my Douglas fir some years ago, they SCREAMED so loudly I thought there was a massacre happening in my front yard.
ReplyDeleteWith five people bathing/showering at your house, it's probably enough water to recycle for your lawns in addition to the potted plants. You'd be amazed how quickly it adds up.
ReplyDeleteWould wildlife rescue come for a squirrel?
I've called on both fawn rescue and, twice, snake rescue. They were really very cool.
A -- You are probably right and when I get a moment, I should look into it. As for the squirrel -- it appears to have run off, so all is well. I did try to call a number of rescue places, but no one was around and most didn't rescue squirrels.
ReplyDeleteWildlife Rescue won't rescue a squirrel? What the heck?
ReplyDeleteI hope it scampered off to join its brethren, but somehow I suspect it went the route of Ms. Moon's squirrel -- maybe not via snake, but who knows.
A baby squirrel fell out of a tree in my dad's yard many years ago. Dad nursed it to health, and then kept it inside in a specially-built cage with a big tree branch. He named it Seth. It lived for something like TWELVE YEARS. I am not making this up.
OMG, I am dying laughing at this post. Love it. Hate turkey barns. Pigs and cattle are now raised the same way. Sad, disgusting, bad for all of us. Makes me scream "in my mind" all the time. ;)
ReplyDeleteToo funny!
ReplyDeleteGlad the squirrel is on his way. I'm one of those few people that happen to like squirrels, except for the family that made it's home in my old house. It wasn't so much that they set up their home there, it was that they sounded like they were bowling. How in the hell can such small animals make so much fucking noise?
I'm with Claire. You made me laugh, too, but what made me want to scream in this post was the turkey barn. Also, the farmer's arrogance.What he created isn't even remotely related to Nature. I hope the mother somehow rescued her baby squirrel. Mothers are mothers are mothers.
ReplyDeleteWell, in MN wildlife rescue does take in baby squirrels that fall from trees. How do I know this? I have seen it on facebook in the last week. This must be the baby squirrel falling season. They are rodents though you know. Fluffier than a rat but still a rodent. Glad it scampered or got eaten (quickly). This post rocked!!
ReplyDeleteHere in the crunchy-granola, tree-hugging Northwest, the Animal Rescue folks have legions of individuals who will come take care of everything from squirrels to someone's pet monkey they shouldn't have ever gotten. I hope the little guy made his way back to his family. Maybe while you weren't looking his mother scampered down the tree, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and took him home.
ReplyDeleteof course nursing a baby squirrel is the last thing you'd want to do! saint martin (i'm no mormon, but having lived in a catholic country most of my life, i'll throw in some religion now and then) cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a storm - which means that we need to learn what NOT to give in order to keep our sanity.
ReplyDelete