Article content“They know you can’t do anything,” she said one day, failing miserably to hold back the snorting laughter that followed.Article content“Oh yeah, well I’ll teach them,” I thought as I stormed out the door. The squirrel must have had a feeling. Time to leave. He jumped into the branches of a neighboring skinny little maple still finding its feet as I marched over.Article content“Not this time, buddy,” I snarled, doing my best Clint Eastwood imitation.Article contentArticle contentKnow your enemyArticle contentI grabbed the trunk and started rocking the sapling back and forth as violently as I could. Mr. Squirrel grabbed on for dear life, his hind end swinging like a flag in a stiff wind. Ah, revenge is sweet. Then he jumped to the next tree, and the next, where he promptly sat up, stared at me and started yelling.Article content“How dare you! How dare you!”Article contentI’ve learned to speak squirrel. You need to know your enemy.Article contentEscalation followed. I tried a slingshot.Article contentArticle content“You are NOT killing a squirrel,” declared Beautiful Wife, throwing her body in front of the intended victim. OK, maybe she didn’t throw it, but she did go out onto the lawn and shoo away the potential target.Article content“Besides, you couldn’t hit the ground with a rock if you dropped it,” she added. She knows how to hit you where it hurts.Article contentArticle contentNext, a live trapArticle contentA live trap then. Fill it with seed and when the little sucker goes in, bang, the door drops. Trapped. They just laughed. Why bother with the seed in there when there’s lots in the feeder? Eventually, I discovered their weakness. Walnuts. They love walnuts.Article contentThe trap worked. Over. And over. And over. Last year, I transported 33 squirrels – yes, I kept score – 10 kilometres back a nearby country road and dropped them off on the edge of the woods.Article contentAnd?Article contentThere were always two squirrels sitting in the trees waiting for me when I got back home. Always.Article contentArticle content“Maybe they’re the same squirrels,” giggled BW.Article content“That’s impossible,” I argued. “They can’t race the car back to the house.”Article content“No. No. But my father always said if you want to get rid of a squirrel, you need to cross a body of water to make sure it doesn’t come back.”Article contentArticle contentBig, bushy tailsArticle contentI rolled my eyes. But the next time I caught one of the cute rats, I drove it 14 kilometres back the road, to the other side of a good-sized stream.Article content“There BW. Let them find their way back now.”Article contentShe smirked.Article content“What?”Article contentShe turned and looked out the window.Article content“I’ve never seen one of those really big grey squirrels here before,” she said and smiled. “There are two of them out there. On the feeder. They’re really cute. Look how healthy they look, with those big, bushy tails.”Article contentArticle contentArticle contentArticle contentRick MacLean is an instructor in the journalism program at UPEI. He lives in New Brunswick.Article content
RICK MacLEAN: The squirrel looked at me, then the feeder, and laughed
