My Squirrels

I'm going to stop saying that I'm going to write more often. I have every intention of doing it, but time just goes by so fast! I had been meaning to write an update post about my new year's resolutions, but last weekend turned into a little bit of a nightmare, so I want to write about that.

First, you all know how I feel about my squirrels. I have a huge tree in my backyard right off of our back deck, and we've had about six squirrels at a time living in that tree for years. I've seen many generations of squirrels, and I love seeing the cycles--pregnant mom, then tiny babies. It's SO CUTE to see mom "training" her babies. From what I can tell, she makes them stay in a certain area on the tree and they watch her as she comes to the deck to get nuts from me. After about a year, the babies are brave enough to come up to me on their own.

It's hard to tell without a reference with a larger squirrel, but this is one of the babies when mom says it's okay to go play

One of the things I love most is that the squirrels trust me. It's very difficult and takes time to earn their trust, but eventually they recognize my voice and my hand signal that I have nuts for them. I keep peanuts (in the shell) out at all times, but for hand-feeding, I have walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts (all in-shell), as well as shelled walnuts and pecans. Yes, they are spoiled!

Here is a short compilation video... (I hope this works--I feel like I don't even know how to compose a blog post anymore, hahaha)

I used to name them, but eventually it was hard to tell some of them apart, so I just started calling them all "Buddy". They frequently come up to the back door and look inside the kitchen to see if I'm around. Whenever I see them, I open the door and hand them a nut. It feels like passing out candy to trick-or-treaters! Whenever I cook dinner, they see me through the skylight in the kitchen and I can see them come down from the tree to the deck.

At least once or twice a day, I go outside with my "nut sack" (hahaha, I will never NOT laugh at that--it's a little bag I made to hold nuts). The squirrels sit on the railing (sometimes four of them at a time, which you can see in the video above) and I continuously hand out the shelled nuts. I watch them eat and then they reach their hands out for another. I love that they hold onto my fingers while they pick up the nut with their mouth. This time I spend outside is something that I look forward to every day; I go out there with no distractions and just interact with my beloved squirrels. It's therapeutic for me.

I know that to a lot of people, it seems ridiculous to love squirrels this much. But they bring me joy! Lately, I've had so much heavy stuff on my mind; feeding the squirrels is one of the only moments during the day where I can shut out the noise in my head and focus on the present.

Last Friday, it was *insanely* windy (not to mention cold). Well, Chick (my cat) hates storms and the wind was freaking him out. He was standing outside of Noah's door in the hallway and meowing loudly, so I started to walk over to him to comfort him. As I was walking past my dining room, I heard a loud crack from the backyard, and looked outside to see (what I thought was) a large branch coming off of my squirrel tree.

We've lost a branch here and there through the years, but this looked big. As I stood there, I saw the ENTIRE TREE tip over and uproot. This tree was massive! Maybe 80 feet tall? (I'm totally guessing). I just started yelling, "Holy shit, oh my god!" over and over again while I panicked a bit. Noah was the only one home and he was sleeping.

The view from my window 😞 

Where I like to sit and feed the squirrels

My first thought was my squirrels. I was so worried about them, and I knew that one of them had babies very recently. I immediately ran outside and started looking for the babies. I knew where all the hidey holes were, so I just went from one to the next, searching. I was about to give up when I heard a loud squeaking noise (it's a baby squirrel in distress cry) and I followed the noise. I saw a tiny baby underneath a huge branch and my heart sank. I thought the branch was pinning it down and I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to get it out.

Thankfully, I was able to reach under and grab it. I held it against my chest to warm it and he stopped his cry. I started looking for any siblings nearby and didn't see or hear any. At that moment, my next door neighbor came over and I told him what I was doing. He said, "Did you see the front of your house?"

I had run outside right after the tree fell, so I didn't know what he was talking about. He said that a utility pole fell on top of my garage, and the wires were hanging over our driveway. That was obviously a big deal, but my first priority was finding the squirrels. I went back to where I found the one baby and dug around inside the tree. Right as I was about to give up, I found another baby. I continued to look for babies and their mom. As I was doing that, a police officer or firefighter came into the backyard to tell me that he taped off the street in front of my house because of the power lines. I still hadn't even looked at it yet, so I went inside with the babies and put them inside of a winter hat to keep them warm, then I walked out to look at the garage.

Baby boys, a week and a half old

Sure enough, the utility pole had come down right on top of the garage and punctured a large hole in it. There was also a dead tree across the street that had fallen into the road, blocking the road off. My electricity went out, of course. And interestingly, my neighbors' still had power. It was just my house that lost power! Between the tree, the branch, and the electricity, it reminded me of the subreddit r/fuckyouinparticular, because nobody else in the neighborhood had damage.

I had no idea what to do about the squirrels. It was still crazy windy and cold outside, so even if mom came back for them, she had nowhere to put them, considering the tree was on the ground. With all that was going on, I called Jerry and ask if he could come home from work. He left work and when he got home, he said he called wildlife rehabs on his way home and lined something up for us. I was SO grateful! The woman from the rehab told us what to do--absolutely do not try to feed them or give them anything to drink, and it was absolutely crucial to keep them warm. She suggested putting one of those disposable handwarmers under a blanket. 

She said we could wait until morning when the wind died down and try to get the mom to come back by playing a loop of the baby squirrel in distress cry (I found it on a wildlife rehab site). If that didn't work within an hour or two, we could bring them to her.

Without electricity, it was SO COLD in the house that night. The thermostat said 51 degrees on that first night. I put the squirrels (still in the hat) into a small box with a handwarmer underneath them. I was worried about the cats finding them, so I slept with them right next to me. 

In the morning, it was still very cold, but I tried doing what the rehab woman suggested with the squirrel cries. There were no squirrels in sight, which was disheartening. I felt *horrible* about taking the babies from their mom, but I decided to bring them to the rehab. They were only about a week and a half old, so they needed to eat. The woman at the rehab was so kind and I felt very confident that the babies were in good hands with her. She texted later that night to say they were eating and doing well.

Jerry and I, on the other hand, were freezing. The thermostat got down to 45 degrees that second night! The energy company still hadn't come to fix the pole. On Sunday, I called my brother, Nathan, who is a lineman for the energy company and told him what was going on. He called his supervisor and after some digging around, it turned out that someone had marked the job as "complete" on Friday night. So they didn't even know that we still had no power!

On Sunday evening, they came out and restored power temporarily. They still had to replace the pole, but they at least got the wires back up out of the way. Jerry had to put a tarp over the hole in the garage roof. We were so excited to get warm and sleep in a warm bed! (Interestingly, we discovered that when a Tempurpedic mattress gets super cold, it becomes hard as a rock.) We contacted the insurance company about the wind damage, who sent an adjuster out a couple of days ago to assess. 

Once all the chaos was back in order, I kind of had a little breakdown. I am completely devastated about the tree. I'm sure the squirrels will probably still come around, but it's just not the same. I loved sitting out on the deck and watching the squirrels in the tree. It was also home to a lot of them. I can always plant another tree (and I will) but it'll be at least 15-20 years before it'll be big enough for squirrels to inhabit. And you all know how good I am at growing trees. 🙄 

For a few days, I didn't see a single squirrel at all. Today, there were three that kept coming up for nuts. Usually there are about six. I just feel like my spirit is crushed. I'd already been having a tough time mentally, but this was a huge blow. I'm not sure I did the right thing with the babies, but at least I know they are safe. I haven't seen their mom yet.

Anyway, that was quite the weekend. Right now, it's windy and snowing, and I just want the weather to warm-up!