Little Squirrel Lost
May. 7th, 2003 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonNear the end of the workday yesterday, HLM sent me a really cute email (and picture) telling me the story of a young squirrel that had gotten marooned on our window screen off to the side of our (second story) porch. He took some pictures of it, then removed the watching cat from the porch so the squirrel could get back, but the squirrel was too afraid of him and, edging away onto the house siding, fell to the ground. It was okay, and when HLM went out to the gym he found it on the first floor porch, seeming much less afraid. Then as he watched, a dog out for a walk ripped its leash out of its owner's hand and chased the squirrel up a tree (apparently a narrow escape, but again, squirrel okay).
When I got home after two hours of TKD, I found HLM up on our porch with a flashlight, saying the squirrel was still out in the tree (which is right in front of our house and extends up past all 3 floors). I went up and looked, and yes, it was curled up in a high branching of the tree where the trunk basically split in 4 directions. HLM told me it couldn't get home, because home is in the floor of the porch right above ours, and the way there is to jump there from a high, narrow branch. This little one was just too unsteady on the small branches and had given up for the night, even though one of its parents had come down for a while and played with it. Awwwww, poor little squirrel. HLM had propped a 2x4 up from the lower porch to our porch for it, but I thought a better idea would be to grab the branch that led to squirrel-home and tie it to our porch with a rope so that it rested securely against the 3rd porch. That would make it a lot more stable and easy to climb. So we did that, and we left a handful of shelled almonds in a tree branching we could actually reach (the squirrel was 15ish feet up), and finally after much discussion we lobbed a winter hat over from our porch into the branching where the squirrel was, for nesting material if it got too cold. HLM was impressed that I made this shot and so was I. But the squirrel, which we thought we'd scare half to death, only chittered a time or two and didn't move. I guess it was really zonked.
That was about all we could do for it, so we went to sleep. This morning at 7:00 there was no little squirrel anywhere, the hat was on the ground, the almonds were completely gone (as were the hazelnuts HLM had put on the lowest porch, which the little squirrel had not taken the day before), and... that's it. So we think it is home again and we probably won't see it again until it's older.
When I got home after two hours of TKD, I found HLM up on our porch with a flashlight, saying the squirrel was still out in the tree (which is right in front of our house and extends up past all 3 floors). I went up and looked, and yes, it was curled up in a high branching of the tree where the trunk basically split in 4 directions. HLM told me it couldn't get home, because home is in the floor of the porch right above ours, and the way there is to jump there from a high, narrow branch. This little one was just too unsteady on the small branches and had given up for the night, even though one of its parents had come down for a while and played with it. Awwwww, poor little squirrel. HLM had propped a 2x4 up from the lower porch to our porch for it, but I thought a better idea would be to grab the branch that led to squirrel-home and tie it to our porch with a rope so that it rested securely against the 3rd porch. That would make it a lot more stable and easy to climb. So we did that, and we left a handful of shelled almonds in a tree branching we could actually reach (the squirrel was 15ish feet up), and finally after much discussion we lobbed a winter hat over from our porch into the branching where the squirrel was, for nesting material if it got too cold. HLM was impressed that I made this shot and so was I. But the squirrel, which we thought we'd scare half to death, only chittered a time or two and didn't move. I guess it was really zonked.
That was about all we could do for it, so we went to sleep. This morning at 7:00 there was no little squirrel anywhere, the hat was on the ground, the almonds were completely gone (as were the hazelnuts HLM had put on the lowest porch, which the little squirrel had not taken the day before), and... that's it. So we think it is home again and we probably won't see it again until it's older.
