Squirrely busines...

Over the last three summers, we have had a repeat visitor out on our deck. (Photo here grainy b/c it was taken through the screen.) He is the cutest squirrel, and I can swear that he is getting used to us!

The first summer we lived here he would run away if we as much as flinched involuntarily on our side of the window. The second summer he would stay longer, but scurry off if my daughter began to move closer for a better look. By last winter he was getting pudgy again, and did not seem to care if we watched him mosey about his business. 

Yesterday he showed back up, and for a minimum of twenty minutes recording time (not to mention the time before that of watching, deciding to record, locating and carefully moving closer with the video camera) we got to enjoy watching him! 

He certainly is a funny little fellow. First he walked back and forth on the railing for a bit. He tried a time or two to come down the large tomato plant using the wire cage around it, to no avail. He was just too heavy. His solution to this was to run across the rail and come down the left wall. From there, he went to the smaller container of tomato seedlings (the billies), and dug in the dirt, removing and eating something three times. I think he was maybe snatching the little nutrient balls moisture balls that are included, and supposed to pop when the soil needs them to.

Whatever he ate, it made him sleepy. He worked his way back up a rail and onto the top of it, where he promptly laid out as if sleepy. We had to laugh; he clung to it a bit like he was afraid to fall! At one point (seen in photo) he looked down over the railing at something below.

He spent a good number of minutes resting like this, and my little bean and I spent it chatting back and forth watching him. I guess he got tired of rest too, because he perked his little head up and spent another considerable amount of minutes cleaning and grooming himself with no shame.

The last segment of squirrel watching was spent laughing at him trying - again - to get down the big tomato plant using the wire cage. It just didn't work! He moved along the top of the railing over to the right, down a single pole part-way, and grabbed onto Becka's scooter. No dice! The moment he put weight on the handle of it, he knocked it clattering to the floor and scared himself along the rail, up the wall and off the porch altogether! His escape to the roof was hard to get, but was still pretty silly to us all the same.