Trouble with Squirrels

I have a love/hate relationship with squirrels.  The couple of times that I thought that I hit a squirrel with my car, I have been in tears.  They are furry creatures and I do not wish to cause them harm.  That is unless those jerks come over the fence into my back yard.

I HATE the squirrels that make their way into my yard.  Our backyard squirrels have very little fear and huge cajones to even attempt some of the shenanigans they pull. They had giant holes chewed through our trash cans within weeks of us getting the previous hole-ridden ones replaced.  In the winter time, they've been known to track garbage all across the lawn.  And just days before my tomoatoes are ready to be harvested, those assholes get into the garden and bite into the near-ripe beauties leaving evidence behind just to piss me off.  The squirrels in our backyard can go to hell.  

The other day, Cara came into the house yelling about how I needed to come out and look at a baby squirrel that was in the back yard.  I thought, "I'll do something better than look at it.  I'll stop that little jerk from ever propagating again. Chew through my garbage cans, will ya?"  I step off of the back porch, ready to chase that furry-tailed rodent and give it a squirrelly heart-attack and the hate part of my love/hate relationship with these guys melted away.

There, sitting before me, was this tiny, trembling little creature who was covered in flies.  He was obviously sick or hungry or injured.  This little thing was so pitiful that all I could think about was how we could save him. And keep him as a pet.  And maybe buy him some of these.  I thought "He needs to get his strength up. Let's give him protein."  And I grabbed a bit of the salmon that we had left over from dinner that night.  What?  You guys wouldn't give a squirrel salmon?  Yeah, that's what Craig said, too.

I contacted the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center but, since they were getting ready to close, we would have to wait until the morning to bring this cutie in.  The guy on the phone said that we should NOT feed him (oops), should maybe give him a little water, and put him in a box with a bunch of toilet tissue in it to keep him warm.  We borrowed a cage to put the box in and he hunkered down in the toilet paper for the night.

The next morning, I got up before Cara to make sure that our little visitor had made it through the night and, after seeing that he was still breathing, Cara and I got dressed and ready to take the little guy to the WRC.  As we were leaving, we heard a familiar mewing sound and saw another baby squirrel in the yard.  This guy was coming toward us, just as his brother did the night before.  He didn't seem as much in distress as the first guy, but I figured if we were relocating one of them, we shouldn't leave the other one alone.  So, we packed up number two in the crate along with his brother and headed out.

#1 peeks out from his TP nest as #2 huddles in the corner.

Taking our two furry guys to get nursed back to health.

We filled out some paperwork, gave the WRC a donation to help offset the cost of taking care of these guys, and were on our way.

After we had been home for about an hour, I had to take trash out to our rodent-damaged cans.  As I was putting the garbage away, I noticed a rustling in the bushes.  Seems that there were three squirrels in that litter and #3 was pretty put-off that his brothers were missing.  Instead of the pathetic mewing, this guy clicked and yelled and scurried back up the tree as I came towards it.  

It was right about then that the love part of my relationship with squirrels took a back seat again.  This adventure had successfully relocated two new members of the garbage-munching rodents that plague my back yard.  However, I am now left with a squirrel who is pretty ticked off that I left him with no family.  He is now the Inigo Montoya to my Six-Fingered Man.

Bring it, squirrel!