It happened last Thursday night that our whole family was walking home from a school program that my older two children participated in. (It was really cute by the way...Sophie danced so sweetly and Sam rocked out to the beat standing up on the risers...he was hilarious. I can't wait to get him on the drums :) Anyway, Sam, Sophie, Sarah and myself were walking down the sidewalk, nearly home. Luke (who had the keys in his pocket) and Ruby were lagging behind a couple houses back.
We came upon a neighbor walking his dog...a large dog. As we went to pass, a squirrel came out of nowhere right up to the dog. Normally you would think a dog would start barking and going after the little critter, but that did not happen. The dog backed off, nervously. At first we all kind of laughed, commenting on how we had never seen such a bold squirrel. Then the neighbor, getting nervous about this confrontation between dog and tree-rodent, took off for home. This is when the craziness started. Luke told me later that our neighbor had passed him and said something like, "I've never seen a dog so afraid of a girl" It wasn't until after this weird incident happened that he realized the man had said "squirrel" not "girl."
As our neighbor moved down the street, Luke was still far behind and had no idea what was going on. I shuffled the kids on to the front deck to wait for Luke to unlock the door. The squirrel followed us, jumped on the lattice work and started up the deck. At this point, we were all getting pretty freaked out. We made a break for the back yard. The squirrel chased us all the way back!! Okay, this is really weird, I thought. Since the doors were LOCKED and the keys were in LUKE'S POCKET and he had NO IDEA what was going on, I told the kids to climb up on the swing set platform and grabbed the aforementioned Handy-Rake to fend off this crazy squirrel.

We waited a while and Luke took Ollie out to piddle...Rake in hand. Animal Control was closed so I called them the next day and tried to explain this scenario. All I got was,
"That was a mother squirrel. She must have a nest nearby."
I tried again to emphasis the beyond-normal aggressiveness of this squirrel. Nothing...she was entirely unalarmed, uninterested.
"That's what mother's do," she said flatly.
"Ookay, thanks, bye."
Haven't seen the squirrel since...well at least, if we have it was much better behaved. Maybe it was just a really, really, really over-protective mother. We've all met one. I don't know...I'm just sayin'.
All I could think was, "RABIES!!"
It was weird...it was really weird.
8 comments:
You are such a great writer Ruth! It's like being able to see exactly what happened just by reading your story. I really had to laugh this time, I mean when do things like this really happen. And it's ok to laugh now, no one got hurt and the picture just topped it off!
Are you kidding me!!!!!
That had to have been totally freaky! I can just see you waving that rake in the air screaming at the crazed squirrel. Oh I feel a belly laugh coming on. Mixed of course with a heavy dose of sympathy. But, holy cow what has the old neighboorhood come to these days.
Like I said, this has to be the weirdest thing I have EVER experienced :) At least I got a few good laughs and a great blog post from it! LOL :))
I'm glad everyone's okay, and I'm sure this will be a story told for many years to come. I too cracked up at your choice of picture!!(LOL)It's obvious that Win and Luke are brothers because your description of Luke's action made me think, "Yeah, Win would do exactly the same thing." Men!!! ;-)
Although I'm sure it was very scary at the time.. all I could do while reading this post was laugh. It is hilarious to think of one of those meek little squirrels being so aggressive.. like a scene from a horror movie or something!!
But I have to say, in between laughing, as I read on, I started thinking rabies too.. do squirrels get it? I mean that is just so uncharacteristic for a squirrel.. and how did that dog know to back off like it did? Maybe it knew something that all the people who saw the squirrel didn't..
Stay safe now!
A few words of wisdom from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory "Little girl don't touch that squirrels nuts!" Thats the first thing that Seth said after reading it. I have never heard of a squirrel doing that before! Praise the Lord everyone got in safely!!!!!
LOL...Good advise from
Mr. Wonka! :)
aloha ruthie,
just came across your blog because it seems we have some similar interest--including Wayne Teasdale whom I met (and his teacher Father Bede) before his passing.
like your blog thoughts on spirituality. i would appreciate a favor from you if you have time. would you take a look at my blog and give a little feedback. i'm seeking to communicate to 'regular people like us' on some 'living a spiritual life in a material world' topics.
the site is
theworldismyashram.blogspot.com
thanks and namaste,
phillip
Post a Comment