Squirrel!

Did you hear the one about the squirrel? No? Well, then, I shall regale you with the superfluous details of our Secret Squirrel.

We live in an old brick house. I love it. I mean, it's not what we want it to be yet, we have lots of dreams and plans for it. But it is sufficient the way it is, and if we never get to finish it off the way we are dreaming, we will still be happy.

But.

It IS old. And there are some cracks in the foundation...nothing to make me fear my house will collapse on me in the middle of the night, mind you. But apparently enough for sly little rodents to move in without a rental contract. Pretty sure that is how the squirrel got in. Sneaky little squirrel, squirreling away in our basement.

I heard it first, but I wasn't sure that what I heard was, uh, what I heard, so I just put it in the back of my mind. It was only in retrospect that I was able to connect the squirrel to what I heard.

Hyrum actually saw it. But he only got a quick glimpse in a dark corner. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I had sent him to the basement to fetch some canned goods from the pantry shelves. He came back to report that there was some type of animal in the basement. He wasn't sure, but it might even have been a raccoon! or an opossum! Yuck.

Mark was snoozing - and I'm pretty protective of his Sunday afternoon nap, because having him well-rested is in my best interests - so we decided to just leave it alone until he got up. Because this woman certainly wasn't going into the basement to mess with a ferocious, free-loading, fur-bearing critter.

When Mark was vertical again, Hyrum shared his observations, and the two of them headed to the basement, ready to do battle. I stayed right where I was. It was not a rat, Mark called up the stairs, as he had initially thought. It was a squirrel, and it was giving them quite the chase. Finally, it tucked itself into a corner behind the water storage bottles, and Mark just sat down, trying to think what to do next. He sat there long enough, the tricky little thing poked it's head up and started inching out of its nook. Somehow, Mark moved fast enough and managed to grab it by it's tail. We heard the terrified squeaking all the way upstairs. Then we heard the cellar doors open, as Mark tossed the squirrel unfeelingly out into the dark, cold winter night. Bye-bye, Secret Squirrel!

Hyrum and Mark came up to report on the incident. It was the most exciting, quirky thing that had happened in a while. Also, they mentioned that the squirrel was so scared when Mark grabbed it's tail, it peed on the floor. {snicker} Gabba loves to add this detail to the story when she tells the neighbor kids ("It was so scared, it peed it's fur!").

Is it silly that I feel like I should have gotten pictures? Or that I should apologize for not doing so? Mark assures me that I will be able to recognize the Squirrel in Question when I see it in the yard, because he thinks there might be some fur missing from said tail. I will probably NOT get close enough (with or without a camera) to tell it from the other six squirrels that muscle the birds out of the bird feeders.

Let that be a lesson to all potential rodent squatters. The House of Phogles doesn't take kindly to your kind. Just keep moving.

This photo doesn't actually have anything to do with squirrels, but it made me chuckle...