Horsin' around
Don Coldsmith, Syndicated Columnist
Originally published 01:21 p.m., April 28, 2008
Updated 01:21 p.m., April 28, 2008
This morning, I’m trying to play catch-up on some of the writing I need to finish. It doesn’t help that when I glance out the window, I can watch a squirrel raiding the bird feeder.
It’s only in the last few years that we’ve had a multiplication of the squirrel population out of all reason. In years past, there were enough squirrels in Emporia to be cute and interesting. We seldom saw any where we live. It was a couple of miles outside the town, then. Since there were no other houses in sight, coyotes, hawks, owls and bobcats probably managed the squirrel population. The balance of nature.
It’s different, now. There are dozens of houses within our view. Not many big trees yet, but in early spring, driving across town, it seemed to me that each block had a couple of flattened squirrels, victims of traffic. As the town grows, there are probably fewer hawks and owls in the parks and landscaped yards, too. Squirrels have fewer natural enemies and they multiply. They’re cute, but they can do a lot of damage to houses and buildings. With teeth designed for cracking black walnuts, wooden objects aren’t even a challenge.
Meanwhile our shade trees, now several decades old, bear acorns, nuts and hackberries, and furnish a lot of upper limbs for nest building. Consequently, more squirrels.
That’s probably true everywhere. One of the expected pastimes for rural teenage boys a generation or so ago was the hunting of rabbits and squirrels. Their mothers welcomed the addition of these groceries to the family table. Fried rabbit or squirrel, with biscuits and gravy, was a real treat, at very little expense. Now, most of the moms of teenage boys probably wouldn’t know where to start on such a meal and might be totally grossed-out at the very thought. Times change.
Back to the squirrel in our hackberry tree — I’m afraid he might destroy the wooden feeder. That happens occasionally. In this case, it took the varmint only a little while to figure how to slide down the wire from the limb above to the top of the feeder, then on down to the platform. He can eat a whopping amount of bird seeds, compared to a chickadee.
We’ve had bird feeders outside the kitchen since the kids were growing up. Some years we kept a list of bird species we’d seen on the place, and it would add up to a hundred or more over a year’s time. I’m not too enthusiastic about a) the damage my pet squirrel might do to the feeders, or b) how much bird seed a squirrel might devour. And I’m sure he’ll bring friends.
So far, I’ve tried to outwit the squirrel. I put a 16-inch disc from an old harrow over the feeder with the support wire running through the hole in the middle. That slowed him some, but then he figured how to lie down on his stomach on the disc, holding to the wire with one hind foot. This lets him tilt the disc and reach with one hand under the disc, where he can’t even see, to grab the wire he knows is there. Then he swings around and under.
Let’s see — maybe I could rig the disc so he can’t tilt it — It’s worth a try. The squirrel will study it, sit there pumping his tail up and down while he chatters. (I can tell he’s cussing). Then he solves his problem, and I try to outwit him again.
Of course, there is a solution. We could regress back to a few decades ago and solve it pretty quickly. It would still work. However, so far I haven’t had much luck in suggesting anything about biscuits and gravy. Actually, mostly sarcastic looks. Maybe I could slide the disc farther up the wire, and —
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.
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