I inherited a sort of porch-style outdoor swing from my sister a few months ago. It had a heavy metal pipe frame and some big plump cushions. It had some weather stains, which made it a little bit ugly, but it was very comfortable. It sits out in the middle of the back yard, a good place from which to view the world. From the very beginning, though, it was doomed.
I never knew what was ripping open the cushions and still have never caught any animal in the act. But, eventually I could see that there was so many of the bits of white cushion stuffing falling out of the squirrel nests onto the ground below that I had to conclude it was them doing all that damage. The squirrels chew everything else to bits around here--bird feeders, birdhouses. Why not this as well? I kept trying to patch the damage to the cushions, but the violators were having too much fun. They tore away at it as if they very well knew they were tearing my senses to pieces. It just made me furious. I can’t start shooting at them since we’re in the city limits. But, at the same time, we’re such a rural city that there’s no end of replacement squirrels even if I did shoot a few.
There’s a State Park less than a dozen blocks from here with about a million squirrel recruits ready to move in here if any space becomes available. They’re like cockroaches. The two are the best examples I can think of to illustrate the old saying about how Nature Abhors A Vacuum. Each seems devoted to the practice of filling the universe with themselves!
If there were a button I could push that would make all the squirrels everywhere disappear at once, I’d strongly consider doing so. But so far I haven’t found that button! Anyway, Animal Planet would probably take me out and have me shot—or puppy-licked or cat-pawed to death, whatever it is that they do to get even with vicious animal killers. So I gave up on this part of The Squirrel Wars. I jerked the cushions off the frame and burned them in the burning barrel, one by one. Maybe it’s a hazardous act, BUT I DON’T CARE! The cushions didn’t resist the fire any better than they’d resisted the clawing they’d been getting. Screw the environment--maybe the poisonous black stinking smoke will give a squirrel or two emphysema. At first I forgot the insignificant little pieces of armrest padding, but the squirrels didn’t. I waited to see if the fuzzy-tailed demons would decide to start eating that as well. They did.
Post Script: Today the local library was having a book sale to raise money and I bought a large 1982 copy of a National Geographic Atlas for two bucks. What a sweet deal. I wonder if I can find a country in there that doesn’t have squirrels? It’s just a thought.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children. -- Clarence Darrow
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Abandon hope, all ye who enter here! (At least put on your socks and pants.)