time to relocate

Along about last spring, we became aware of a constant, odd pittering noise coming from the front of the house.

It turned out to be a squirrel who had decided that the little seed buds on our dogwoods constituted a fine mealtime buffet. What we were hearing was the empty pods, hundreds on hundreds of them, being cast aside and hitting the stone and concrete steps of our front stairs.

We learned to walk carefully, cos those little pods are sharp and, en masse, a little slippery.

Then began the foraging in the garage. Safe neighborhood and all that, it must be said (I know, people, I know I KNOW) that we were in the habit of leaving the door up, along with the windows open in the car.

What the squirrel apparently discovered was that floor of the car was a total bonanza: a delightful, delectable repository for stray cheerios, pretzels, and such. To the point where last summer it GNAWED THE RUBBER off the window seal on the MPM’s car when he — most inconsiderately — put them all the way up, thus denying easy access.

We learned to close the garage door. Mostly. Though I did come upon him rummaging about in MY car one day and, I confess, I screamed.  I mean, I really screamed.  I’m no girly girl but the daggone thing STARTLED me.  Kira still talks about it.

So. Here it is, autumn. Here are our lovely Jack-O-Lanterns that I carved with the girls on Sunday.  They dictate the design; I am old-fashioned and lazy and carve freehand with an old paring knife.  Feel free to judge harshly my creativity and finesse, however.

Oh, wait; no.  Fact is we don’t have a photo of how they appeared on Sunday. What we have is our Jack-o-Lanterns as they appeared on Monday, in a state that Kira termed “different and more scarier” — indeed, note the gruesome effect wrought by That Damn Squirrel:

And both the others lost their teeth.

Hear me now, Mr. Squirrel: we do not begrudge you the natural abundance of the dogwoods, nor even the occasional breakfast cereal. But defacing Jack-o-Lanterns? Is just that one step over the edge. Operation Rodent Relocation will commence at dawn.