• Tag Archives squirrel
  • “You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.” Hal Borland

    otherwise known as, “What I did on my summer vacation”.

    Since my backyard is nature central for no apparent reason, I find something new every time I’m back there. In prep for my trip to LA, I needed to mow – so that it wasn’t totally out of control by the time I got back. Speaking of which, I actually need to be packing RIGHT NOW.

    I was walking around, looking at some things that I needed to use the weedeater on, and nearly tripped over a baby squirrel. It looked like it had fallen out of the tree. I went and got a box and a shovel, so that I could transfer the obviously living, blinking, and occasionally chirping squirrel into it. Poor little guy.

    Once I got him into the box:

    Being the city boy that I am, I immediately ran inside and googled what the hell I should do with a tiny, living, breathing baby squirrel.  Pretty quick, it was apparent that I needed to contact a “Wildlife Rehabilitator” in my area.  I called one and he suggested that I place the box in the nook of the tree.  He also said that the baby should be picked up pretty quickly if it was making noise and it’s mother was near. Poor little guy (who I nick-named Binky after the old Life in Hell series) was pretty week, so he was only chirping when the box was moved around.

    So after nothing happened for about forty minutes, I called the guy back and he said I could bring him by. I dropped him off and donated $40 to the guy since this “Wildlife Rehab” gig is a volunteer position. As soon as I opened the box, the guy grabs Binky and cups him in his hands.  Binky almost bit him once, but then totally settled down and curled up. In talking to this guy, he hangs out at my next door neighbor’s house a lot and was the one that installed their pool (with waterfall) in their backyard. Small world! So we traded a bunch of stories about how strange the people were that owned my house before me, and I moved on.

    He said that in about three months Binky would be taken out to a several hundred acre park in Cedar Hill.  In all respects, Binky was healthy except just dehydrated.

    Bye Binky!