It’s not unusual except my trees are small and most squirrels in the area avoid our yard. Most prefer to use the elevated walkway, the utility wires to get around rather than risking the ground-besides, my bushes might be hiding a dreaded cat.

Still, when winter comes and these fur balls wake from their naps needing a snack, one sometimes comes around and steals seed I’ve set out for birds. I wouldn’t mind if he would content himself to eating the abundant goodies on the ground, but this critter finds it necessary to go up and get it directly from the feeder. He destroyed one feeder I was quite fond of because it was uniquely designed. The little rascal chewed it to pieces, and there is the basis of our “problem.”

You cant blame me if one day as I was working at the dining room table, I saw this big fat buck saunter up, and after looking the situation over, scooted up the Magnolia tree and proceeded, as rodents do, to stretch out from a branch above and began eating from the feeder upside down.

It was too much for me so I fetched a broom from the utility room, carefully unlocked and opened the door and stared at my furry friend as he sat up on the branch and looked down on me. He just sat there with this smile, like the little boy caught with dirty face and dripping hands over the remains of a cookie.

We continued to eyeball each other as I scolded that squirrel and told him to get off my feeder. I made like I was going to use my broom to add emphasis to my words. I succeeded in removing the smile off his face, but all he did was tense his body, making like he was about to leap at me. Now I don’t know about you, but this made me a little uncomfortable so I retreated slightly toward the door.

The squirrel, seeing opportunity, began making a strategic retreat. “Smart squirrel,” I thought, but before I gloated too much my little poacher decided he would make a casual return by doing a great circle approach around the tree and the back yard.

By now my bravado had returned and I went outside and proceeded to make snow balls to pelt the little bastard. With the firing of my first shot, he immediately made for a small apple tree in my neighbors yard, perhaps 10 feet tall, where he thought safety waited. He didn’t go far before he realized I could throw my missiles even more accurately at a stationary target. But not wishing him any real harm, I stopped after a couple near misses and he got showered with crumbling snow from disintegrating snowballs, hitting limbs around him.

The squirrel sat in that apple tree and cussed me for almost 45 minutes before he cooled enough to hit the road. I went back to the house and my work, feeling superior and satisfaction in my victory over the rodent.

That squirrel didn’t come around here for at least six weeks and now when he does he keeps a close watch on the house, and if there is any rattling of the door he makes a hasty exit. One recent visit he walked up to my window, stood on his hind legs, peered into the den window. He or she then repeated the procedure and stared carefully into my dining room, seeing no one inside, the squirrel turned and scurried up our Magnolia and paused for a time atop the stub of a limb I removed earlier and looked carefully at the window one last time. Then he went straight to the bird feeder which was hanging conveniently from a low limb about eight feet up. The feeder was suspended from the tree attached only by a small chain aimed at discouraging squirrels.

Confident of success and feeling no threat from me, he/she stretched his/her body cautiously downward, holding to the branch above by his/her rear toes. Fully stretched out the squirrel found it difficult to hold on to the slippery metal feeder and lost his/her grip and fell six or seven feet to the concrete below; discouraged, he left.

Time passed and I forgot about the incident. Besides I made my point. End of story, right? Well, not quite. It was about six months later, the end of August and I had just completed running my two-and-a-half mile course through the neighborhood and was at the end of my cool down walking down the sidewalk about a half-block from home. I was at the point where the overhead wires come into our block, and at a terminus of the overhead squirrel highway.

I was walking and not paying attention when suddenly an apple falls, just missing my head, and hit the concrete sidewalk. I was taken aback and paused to discover where this apple had come from and who had thrown it. I looked all around and not a person was to be seen anywhere. My gaze was then drawn up the utility pool beside me where perched at the junction of the wires and the pole was this big fat squirrel, with what I could clearly see was a big grin, looking down at me.

I thought back to the previous winter and the incident. At the time I thought it would be funny if he were to return the favor sometime later when I walked unsuspectingly under one of his big oak trees in the park. I could almost imagine that smile on his face when he let go a load of acorns on my head. Maybe I should have ignored the fuzzy tailed rodent in the first place. Who knows?

Since this incident I have ignored the squirrels in my yard and in return no more apples have fallen out of the sky while I’m out walking or jogging. I guess we both got our point across.