Community Update

      I used to think they
were cute.  I still do, actually, but now
I’m more apt to view them as Hitlers in a teddy bear suit.  They seem to have no sense of aesthetics or
boundaries.  They act like they own the
place.  And while that’s true in a sense,
it’s an out of date and unpopular opinion.

       A few years ago I
tried growing a tomato plant on my patio. 
I babied that plant, checking the soil in the pot every day to make sure
it was not too dry, not too wet.  I fed
it food pellets.  I talked to it in a
gentle voice, telling it how beautiful it was. 
And it rewarded me.  It bloomed,
sprouting sweet little yellow flowers. 
Then tiny green tomatoes appeared. 
And they got bigger.  And
bigger.  And the color began to change
from green to red.  First just a tinge, a
blush, a promise of what the plant was striving for.  I watched that tomato blossom, grow and ripen
until it was nearly ready to pick.  “A
few more days,” I told myself every day for several days.  Finally I decided, “Tomorrow, tomorrow is the
day of harvest,” and my mouth began to water.

       The next day I
looked through the glass patio door to see a heartbreaking and infuriating
sight.  There was a squirrel with my
tomato in his cute little paws, gnawing away at it.  Like it belonged to him.  Like he was the one who had nurtured and
midwifed it into being.  He looked at me
and continued gnawing.  And then he a
totally unforgiveable thing – he dropped the half-eaten tomato on the patio and
ran off.

       For me that was an
act of war and I have used every means at my disposal to get rid of the enemy
army.  Because, although the tomato
plants are in another part of the yard now and are covered with netting, the
squirrels continue to come to my patio to bury the peanuts someone in the
neighborhood gives them.

       If I knew which
neighbor it was, I’d tell them how foolish and counterproductive it is to feed
these semi-wild animals.  Not only are
they carriers of bubonic plague, when that person who is feeding them leaves,
the squirrels won’t have any experiencee at foraging on their own.  Because, of course, the mama squirrel brings
her babies to the food source.   And the
food supplier encourages her. “Oh, aren’t they cute?”  “Come here, sweetie and I’ll give you a
peanut.”  And what they learn is to come
to humans for their food.  We are
surrounded by natural food sources for squirrels, but the easier path, the one
of less resistance and energy depletion, is to go to the never ending handout.

       Cute as they are,
if you’re a squirrel feeder, please stop. 
Do not feed the squirrels.  It’s
better for them and it’s better for all the rest of us who have to live with
the results of your short-sighted actions.