Squirrel Lessons for Me

            We have a resident squirrel at our house.  She provides much entertainment for me and my cat, Benny.  I am sure the entertainment for each not quite the same.  While I am admiring this bunch of active fur Benny is hunched down as low as he can get in front of the patio doors, slowing creeping, inch by inch, closer to the glass door.  Pure cat!  Squirrel saved by a pane of glass!

            I have given her the female gender because she is so busy, so storing up for the winter, even though the winter is here.  She makes me think of the ladies in my village when canning season is upon them.

  This grey little “lady” is swift of foot and keeps at it, back and forth from our woodshed to the nearest big pine tree. The earth is covered with a few inches of snow. It is a fair distance, out in the open, passing along a sidewalk, then an apple tree and sandbox, on behind the swing set and zip, up the pine tree. Sometimes she pauses on top of the sandbox lid, taking a breather, but always on the alert.  She makes this run while packing an item as big as her own head in her jaws.  I am guessing it is a dried apple that she has previously pocketed away in the woodshed in warmer days, when I was through harvesting my own apples. 

            It is not even a minute before she is back down on the ground, checking out a fallen pine cone or two and then a dash back to the shed for yet another burden. 

            She has to be brave, we have an outdoor cat with two kittens.  Maybe she knows they are a lazy variety as they often turn their backs on her activities.  We also have families of magpies that call that same pine “home.”  There seems to be no threat from that department.

            So industrious, so intent on what she is doing.  She could provide several lessons for most humans about how to conduct their lives, how to be successful.  It always makes me think that I need to be better at prioritizing what is important in the eternal scheme of things.  I admire her so much, I just had to write about her.  Hope you have enjoyed it.