There have been times where it looks like he is almost peering into our house. And there are times where he and his mate (gay marriage is allowed in Washington, and we don't discriminate in our house) have gotten a little frisky. I'm telling you, they have no shame.
As I cleaned up the backyard this past summer, Steve kept a watchful eye on my movements. If I got to close to one of his hiding places he would squawk and leap down from his tree and quickly dig it up and rebury it elsewhere. Depending on what I was doing he had to rehide his food storage up to seven times in a day.
He never complained.
On Tuesday of this week we removed three large trees. Okay, we personally did not. We found a limit to my ability with shovel and hatchet; and 100ft trees is that limit. Two trees were side heavy and leaning towards our house. The third was leaning towards the street.
Normally, Steve spends most of his time running up and down the trees and then backflipping when he hit the ground. He's a funny little squirrel.
As I sat on the couch watching the 21st century's take on lumberjacks (hoodies and cargos, with chainsaws and harnesses) cut down trees from the top and feeling the tree's trunk sections hit the ground with a large thump, causing the couch and house to shake, I looked at Chris and asked, "What about Steve?"
We didn't see Steve that day. I'm not sure what his exit plan is for his trees being cut down. But whatever it is, it kept him alive.
Once the trees were down, and the branches chipped and chopped through the chipper chopper the arborists left. Tree removal companies do not remove the wood that used to be a tree; instead they partner with firewood companies to come out and remove the old tree trunks.
Before the wood removal/collector came yesterday afternoon, Steve and his mate made an appearance. Unfortunately for them, the nuts they buried in the backyard were under several thousand pounds of former trees. This did not stop them.
Steve pushed, pulled, and hopped around the fallen trunks, with no success. Steve went so far as to try to burrow under it while his mate tried to pull the log up.
Not going to lie, Disney got the facial expressions of squirrels struggling to lift something much larger and heavier than themselves. I think they spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to get to their food stash.
The wood removal person who liked to think there were multiple people with him at all times showed up about noon.
"Hey! We're here!"
There was one of him, but I wasn't about to point that out to the guy who is going to clean up the yard.
He asked if we had dogs, and I told him no, but there were a couple squirrels who like to hang out in the backyard and could possibly be among the wood piles.
He said he could handle a couple squirrels.
I went inside and about fifteen minutes later I hear him screaming, followed quickly by him shouting, "It's just a squirrel, just a squirrel!" And there was Steve and his mate sitting on logs squawking at him.
For the record, I did warn him.
After all the logs were cleaned up, Steve and his mate came down from the remaining trees and promptly dug up and rehid their food.
I'm afraid to see what they do when we relandscape the yard this spring. The creatures are probably going to have a conniption.
Oh, here is our backyard.
Before
The logs Steve and his mate tried to move, unfortunatley I couldn't get them in the photo
The finished yard
We have so much more light, and the yard seems a lot bigger. I just hope Steve and his mate aren't to angry.
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