Well Folks I think today we need a “Love Story” (o.k. break out the music from that movie).
My brother Bubba has a little Lover. It is a soft, brown eyed, brown furred with bushy tail squirrel ---- Yep! A Squirrel.
You have to see it to believe it. I’m over at his house the other day (it was nice a sunny day for a change), because he wanted me to get some stuff of mine out of his basement since he needs to have some serious foundation work done.
Well his request was reasonable. So I’m getting the things out of the basement, and I need to take a break, the dust was making me cough, so I go upstairs to go to the kitchen and get a drink of water then I come out onto the back porch and talk with my sister-in-law (Mrs. Petite Bubba---trust me folks she is tiny) and we’re talking and then I see out of the corner of my eye a movement.
Now not more than an arms length away is a fat squirrel!! I mean close, usually around here they tend to stay further away, but this one was giving me the “glad-eye” and I said to Mrs. Bubba “do you see what I see?” and she says “yes” and then calls out to my brother “Hey Bubba, your Lover is here”.
Lover? LOVER??? What is going on? Well I never saw my brother move so fast in his life and he weighs over 300 pounds (hence the name Bubba) and he’s built like a Biker but with bad ankles and knees. And he says to me “ ‘cuse me I’ve got a date”----A DATE??!! With a Squirrel???!!!!
Now who’s squirrelly?
So he walks out on to the porch and I hear him say in a real loving, soft voice “Hi sweetheart. How ya doing? I’ve got walnuts for you. Now let me put them out.” And he puts out two walnuts, and the squirrel picks up one tastes it for flavor and then quickly scampers off with it.
So I ask “What’s going on?” And he tells me “She takes two of them and hides them and then she comes back and we share the last two, watch.” And sure enough, she comes back and takes the second one and does the same thing. And then she comes back in a bit and he breaks the last two and very carefully picks out the tiny walnut meat out of the shell with his big hands and the squirrel is looking on looking up at him and all excited but waiting nicely and he says “Now just wait a minute Sweetheart, I’ve got to get it all out” and he makes a nice little pile of the walnut meat (the edible part of the walnut) and she takes a piece and nibbles it a little bit and then stops and looks at him as if saying “Aren’t you going to have some?” and he takes a little piece and nibbles it as well.
Now she is sitting there as pretty as a picture nibbling on the walnuts and he’s just crooning to her with soft endearments. So I ask my sister-in-law “How long has this been going on?” and she says “Over two summers, she’s not afraid of the cats, but she stays clear of the Rabbit” so I ask my brother “How do you know it’s a ‘she’?” and he said “Well it took a while and some careful observation but we know she is a she---ain’t that right sweetheart (this said to the squirrel)”
Now he says to me that he could have her eat out of his hand but he’d prefer that she not do that, “I don’t want her to get too familiar with being with humans; it gives her a measure of caution.” And my sister-in-law said to me “I let Bubba feed her, that way she’ll come to him but will still be cautious around anyone else. Even when he was sick with a cold he’d still come out and feed her all wrapped up in his bath robe and blanket. You should have seen him when it was raining, he fixed the outside porch roof so that she would have shelter from the rain and they could still share the walnuts.”
I thought Mrs. Bubba would be a bit jealous about Bubba fussing over a squirrel but she was just smiling. Then I remembered that she would feed the birds and had one in particular that would eat out of her hand.
Now the squirrel is sitting there with her tail just beautifully curled over her head and I swear she’s flirting with him so I say “Is she flirting with you?” and he grins and says “Yep.” And then the squirrel does a big stretch towards him after she’s eaten her nuts and she is so close to him she could touch his hand with her nose if she wanted to and again I’m thinking she’s flirting with him.
So he talks to her a little longer and then says to her “Well sweetheart I have to go, I’ll see you tomorrow.” And the little thing scampers off.
He says he doesn’t know how long it will continue, “She is getting close to 3 years old now, but she looks healthy, so far.” But during the time that the squirrel is there he’s got the biggest smile on his face.
I turned to my sister-in-law and said “When he was 5 years old he use to chase them, now he romances them.” She and I laughed. They told me they fixed up a box with old towels and she’d use it during the winter months and she prefers to hang around their back yard, “She’s really neat, I thought I’d have to clean out her box, but it was really clean”
I wish I had a camera to take a picture of it. Squirrel Love---it’s a beautiful thing.
And that’s the LOVE STORY for your Valentine’s Day.
(O.K. Folks, now everybody go AAAAWWWWWWWWW)
On the Prowl
