Squirrel Skirmish

Remember a couple of posts ago how I mentioned that my mom had sent Easter eggs and I had hidden them in the back yard?  That didn't go over so well.  

We have two resident squirrels who we have named Bonnie and Clyde.  Generally we are pretty good friends with them.  We leave nuts out for them on our back porch, and in turn they give our boys a good show as they eat them.  As I was hiding the eggs, I looked over and saw Bonnie, running away hugging a bright yellow egg.  I yelled at her, "Oh no you don't!" and starting chasing her down.  Giant though she is, the egg was still a bit cumbersome, and she dropped it.  Lest you think I am not a good sharer, I wouldn't have minded if she had taken the candy, but those eggs had DOLLARS inside!  After I had finished hiding all 48 eggs, I returned indoors.  

A few minutes later I glanced out the window, only to see Bonnie again, this time with fists full of jellybeans, scampering along the fence.  My back neighbors (who had their windows open) must have thought I was just a little bit strange as I shrieked, "BONNIE!" and took off after her.  She got away.  I examined the back yard.  I found several of our plastic eggs with holes bit clean through them and the candy inside gone!  

I know it shouldn't have shocked me.  Squirrels do in fact eat through the shells of nuts, so why should plastic stop them?  But I was shocked, really.  Our squirrel friends were living up to their names and robbing us! At least they were considerate enough to leave the dollars inside the eggs.

In true David fashion, I gathered a pile of pebbles and set up my guard post on the back step to wait for my Goliaths to return.  They didn't disappoint.  And yet, my pebbles didn't seem to bother them too much, even when I met my target.  They were bold little rascals, especially Bonnie.  She kept scampering away with armfuls and mouthfuls of candy, the telltale shiny blue wrappers of Hershey's chocolate bars glinting as she dashed away.  And again, if you are thinking that I am a mean beast for throwing rocks at squirrels, let me defend myself.  I thought about how eating chocolate makes dogs really sick, and I wondered if the same were true for squirrels.  Despite our differences, we are still friends, you know.  I didn't want to be responsible for killing Bonnie and Clyde with chocolate.  And of course, there was still the issue of those dollar bills.  :-/

Well in the end, there were still plenty of plastic eggs for my boys to hunt that afternoon.  And in case you are interested, the final score was Marchant boys:  43 ½ eggs, Bonnie and Clyde:  4 ½ eggs.  

Another event of note happened that night.  We had our very own Easter  Bunny visit us in our backyard!  For those of you who live in Colorado and know that it's infested with rabbits, that may not be too impressive.  But it was the first time in the almost two years we have lived in this home that we had ever seen a rabbit was in our backyard.  We thought it was pretty timely.

See that gray speck out there?  That was him.