Laughing Squirrels and Other Oddities of Nature

It's been my task now for the past few weeks of making sure the entire squirrel population of Ormond By The Sea has an appropriate amount of food to keep their furry little bellies full and happy.

Because, as I found out, you don't want unhappy squirrels in your back yard.

I originally started out with a beautiful terra cotta bird feeder, hung from a low branch, filled with sunflower seed for the beautiful cardinals that drift in and out of the trees in the neighboring yard. I have but one tree in my back yard, and that thing is coming down as soon as I can figure out how to dispose of it without completely destroying the screen enclosure and roof of the house. Yes, I am a tree-hugger, and believe that it's life should continue, but the berries and leaves are just becoming too much. It is, as my dad would have said, a "trash tree."

Anyway, the bird feeder got destroyed as limbs of said trash tree were cut, so a platform was created for the squirrels to eat from an old dog dish, and another bird feeder was hung for the cardinals (and now, wrens, woodpeckers, crows, grackles and ringneck doves).

Now there are two dog dishes with food, two platforms and an old table, two concrete columns and a bird bath (translate: squirrel and bird water dish). The bird feeder, being of the plastic variety, was chewed to bits long ago by said squirrels when I neglected to provide food at the crack of dawn.

I like squirrels. I really do. I've raised several babies who had the unfortunate calamity of falling from nests during the random windstorms we would have back home in Ocala. I don't mind feeding them and I love watching them as they scurry up and down trees, and happily munch on the corn and peanuts from the dishes. But, there is this one squirrel.

This particular squirrel, one with a notched ear and a magnificent tail that would rival that of a fox, drops peanuts on my head, and I swear, it is on purpose. I walk out, fill the food dish, and start cleaning the water dish, and get bopped on the head by a peanut, falling from the trees. At first, I thought it was just an accident, that he had come down out of the tree, grabbed a peanut, I startled him, and he dropped it. Then, it happened again. Three days in a row, I have been hit on the head by a peanut. I look up. Same squirrel. I even looked up one time and seconds later, a peanut came hurdling out of the leaves. Not peanut shells. Whole peanuts.

This is becoming a little disconcerting.

Because, after he drops the peanut, he cackles. Literally. He makes that abrasive little squirrel noise that is usually an All Points Bulletin noise for other squirrels, and he does it every single time.

Squirrels have a very evil sense of humor.