Julie’s News from Maryland

Tonight, while I was up in my room working on a document that I’m writing, Nicholas called to me to tell me that there was a squirrel on our deck.  I went downstairs to join him in his observation of the squirrel and learned that he had already opened the door to talk to the squirrel.  It would seem that this squirrel was not at all frightened of us, since it just stood there a few feet from us staring at us. 

Nicholas and I decided that it must be hungry, so we offered it some cat food.  The cat food was my suggestion - I thought it not very healthy to give the squirrel crackers or bread as Nicholas suggested, but the cat food bowl was nearby.  Nicholas grabbed a few pieces and tossed them in the direction of the squirrel.  It scampered over to the food with enthusiasm, but after sniffing the cat food decided it wasn’t hungry enough to eat that.

Nicholas and I proceeded to have a conversation about what we could offer the squirrel.  He thought bread might be ok.  I wondered aloud if we had any apple slices in the fridge.  Then I remembered that we had grapes on the table.  Nicholas ran over and brought a few grapes back.  We tossed one towards the squirrel and it landed right in front of it.  The squirrel sniffed the grape and then picked it up and began pecking at it.  It became obvious that it would be a bit of work to eat the grape, so the squirrel decided to take it somewhere else to eat it and scurried away.

After the squirrel left, Nicholas thought maybe we could leave a few more grapes on the patio, in case the squirrel came back, so we did that.  Then he said that maybe every Tuesday we could go out on the deck and feed the squirrel.  Every Tuesday.  I found that so fascinating that in his head a squirrel would return regularly, on Tuesday apparently, to be fed grapes.  We’ve never seen a squirrel on our deck before and I don’t imagine that there is much guarantee that it will happen again - well, it is probably more likely now that we’ve fed one.  Once word gets out to the squirrel community that grapes can be had on our deck, we’ll probably have a flock of them daily.  But, I digress.  I think I said something to Nicholas along the lines of, “Well, we don’t know if the squirrel will come back next Tuesday, but we can keep an eye out for it.”

Later in the evening, when I was tucked back in my room working again, I overheard Nicholas telling Rick about the squirrel and the grapes.  As he concluded the story I heard him say, “Mom and I were thinking that maybe every Tuesday we could go out and feed the squirrel on the deck.”