Friday, July 17, 2009

Squirrel Update

It is with mixed emotions that I am announcing a radical decrease in the bunny, squirrel and skunk population living in my yard. Yes indeed our skunk family has moved out and I have filled in the hole again and it remains covered. My plants do not have any further damage. No bunny holes have been detected. Even the gopher from the yard fell into the water fill hole of the basketball hoop and could not escape and drowned. The neighborhood in general has returned to the critter levels I would expect in such an urban part of the city.

I have finally achieved what I had hoped for…and I’m a bit sad. It would appear that my next door neighbor who lives between me and “Squirrel Man” and has beautiful gardens called the City Dept of Animal Control on Squirrel man. My jewish lesbian neighbors didn’t like the skunks travelling back in forth in the wee hours of the morning when they would walk out of the house to go to work (Thankfully they did not know they were living under my garage at the time.) and that their fences were also being eaten by the squirrels. They didn’t like that Squirrel man left veggies in the back yard for the critters in addition to the corn and feed buffet in the front yard. Of course I had the same complaint but I would never call the city and rat him out. That just seems mean.

But the corn cob altar in the front yard is gone. The corn is cleaned up. I’ll assume the veggies are not in the back yard. I don’t see the crazy flock of poop birds hanging out on the tree behind his house just waiting to move to the tree in front of mine if there is a car underneath it.

So all is right in critter land. Balance has been restored to the urban ecology. However, this 63 year old man, a widower whom I never see with guests and watches TV until 2 in the morning yet is also up at 6:30 in the morning, can no longer do the things that probably brought him some joy. So now I feel bad. Be careful what you wish for…

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