The Nutty Olympics... Or Fun With Squirrels

A heap of big storms around here lately and then calm in the morning as I watched a lady Squirrel foraging around the forest floor for nuts... fruits... whatever her little squirrely heart could find.

Her presence, got me to reminiscing about the Middle-Boro times, in our back yard, years ago, so many years ago now, with the cold winter's sun low in the horizon and see your breath on the window pane... we had clothes lines (for hanging out clothes...natch... a set of them by the garage and one line by the house).

One of the few in our neighborhood to do so. Oh we had a dryer too, but to save on electricity, take advantage of the passive drying power of the wind and sun, and that deliciously naturally outdoorsy fresh clothes smell... well, the clotheslines came in handy.

On the clothes line near the house, hung an old queen size blanket, And not for just one day, but for some reason, we never took it in, we left it up there for weeks, probably months, well it was a bit ratty after all, whatever the case, the Eastern Gray squirrels -- which were our local West Side species -- loved it... not just loved it, but Bat Sh!t Crazy in love with it.

It was their whole, wrapped-up-into-one-blanket Squirrel Olympics.

They would run up and down it, play peek-a-boo with each other on the blanket, chase each other around it, leap from the blanket and jump back on it. The squirrels, strong little fellows they be, would even hang on to the blanket and let the wind swing them around like a swing. Crowds of squirrels  in fact gathered on the blanket and enjoyed the un-shelled peanuts strewn around the back yard.
In fact, it got to be such a nuisance with so many squirrels milling about, that we eventually stopped feeding them and took down the blanket... oh, killjoys that we be, but while the blanket was up, they had a rollicking, crazy good time with it and seemed very happy... and nutty.

Image Credit: https://blog.nwf.org/2015/01/10-nutty-facts-to-make-you-appreciate-squirrels/