Dear Kid,

Last night Dad whacked away at the trees near the birdfeeder because a squirrel was jumping from the trees to the eat all the yummy seed. I thought we had solved the Great Mystery of Why the Birdseed Was Disappearing So Quickly. Turns out we may have solved the mystery, but we have not yet solved the Problem.

This morning, I was watching a squirrel try to climb up the birdfeeder pole. It is, imho, very funny to watch them try to figure out how to outsmart the squirrel baffle. Up went the squirrel, down came the squirrel. Rinse and repeat.

Next thing I knew, the squirrel parachuted in from the trees and landed on the birdfeeder. That little rodent must have dropped nine or ten thousand feet. After staring in disbelief for a moment, I yelled, “Hey!” (clever, huh?) and he leapt to the ground. I watched for a while so I could report to the Head Tree Cutter where the squirrel was falling from. Don’t you know that rotten half-tail (yep, it’s the one with the abbreviated tail) sat on the tree stump and tried to out-stare me? I watched. It stared. I watched more. It swished its tail. Booker decided this was the most boring thing in three solar systems and found a small patch of sun for a nap.

Eventually the squirrel ran off. It is a sad commentary on the morning that I felt this to be a major accomplishment.

I put a blue jay in charge of yelling at the squirrels, Booker put himself in charge of arbitrarily waking up from naps to bark at nothing, and I moved on to other things. Except not very efficiently, because I kept popping my head up to peer out a window to see who was noshing on birdseed.

Dear Squirrel,

You are a rodent. A cute rodent, but a rodent. The apparatus in the backyard is a bird feeder, not a rodent feeder. If I wanted to feed squirrels, I would put up a squirrel feeder. Come to think of it, we did hang a squirrel corn thing last summer. As I recall, you and your rodent friends had that corn cob on the ground in 22.6 microseconds. I realize we no longer have a mulberry tree busy making berries for you to nibble, but that’s Mother Nature’s fault, not mine. Go eat a black walnut—we have plenty of those on the ground just for the taking. Please stop free falling from ridiculous heights just to get a meal you aren’t really entitled to because I am absolutely not going to put a squirrel cast on your leg when you break a bone. (Although I’ll probably feel guilty.)

Mom

It appears the Battle of the Birdseed will continue for a while. I’ll keep you posted.

Love, Mom