Squirrel troubles
There is a therapeutic value of cleaning up. Physically (lifting boxes goes for an evening in the gym) and psychologically. In light of the last weeks weather the rearranging activities in my perfumery room make very sense, too. It is like a spring cleaning, as it feels like April these days and we are all hoping for a second spring hormone rush…
Cleaning up the perfumery room means transferring piles of boxes. And bottles. And more bottles and ahhhh! well, more bottles with fragrant molecules waiting to be released. The perfumery room, you may call it the storage room: Looks empty again and is ready for our visitor expected in the coming days.
The side aspect of all of this forth and back: Wow! Look at how many bottles and essential oils and synthetics I have! One starts wondering what else might come up when cleaning the cellar. Thus, I rediscoverd lemon thyme essential oil. I totally forgot about it. It feels like Christmas!
Or like a squirrel in January. Rabbits, we have discovered on this blog earlier, are unsystematic eaters. And trust me: Squirrels have memory troubles. They tend to forget (at least the Swiss squirrels….) where they have hidden the nuts in autumn as reserve for later. Maybe this is one reason why they , from time to time, show predatory behaviour. More on Wikipedia’s article on squirrels. Not that this comes as surprise to me… I always had my doubts! They are just pretending….
July 11th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
It seems we’re both cleaning up at this time of year. LOL!
Only I don’t enjoy it as much….but I do unearth things I had forgotten about.
LOL on your squirrel pic, too cute!
July 11th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Thanks, dear Helg! To be honest: I do not always enjoy it….
July 11th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Dear Andy, your photo of the squirrel perfectly depicts how I have come to view the beasts. Most of our plants are in pots. Every fall in Sacramento they would start digging through our pots to bury their food. Sometimes they pulled up our plants by the roots. Then in winter and spring they would dig through all of our pots looking for their storehouses, since, as you point out, they have bad memories and they couldn’t remember which pots held their treasure.
Now we’re dealing with an even more destructive rodent pest, the pocket gopher, a subterranean tunneler that eats any plant in its path. We were going to plant roses in the ground, but then we learned that would be dangerous, as the gophers wouldn’t hesitate to eat their roots. Norbu seems to believe that hypnotizing gophers is an effective approach; he stares at them for hours. If I were to depict a gopher, I would give it even longer fangs than your squirrel’s. :-)
July 11th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
As a kid I used to think squirrels were very cute. Now that I have a backyard of my own, not so much anymore.
I clicked on the Wikipedia link and in their article it said something about cat or dog fur being a repellent for squirrels. I’m not so sure about this, however. We have not only cat fur but a live cat to go with it and the squirrels don’t seem in the least deterred by it. They outrun the cat any day, laughing at the cat while they’re doing it.
As for the therapeutic aspect of cleaning, I usually feel that too, once I’ve gotten over my inner lazy little self. At the end of the cleaning session it feels so good to be standing back and admiring the newly cleaned part of your house.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Hi Sabina
this is an aspect (squirrels) I haven’ event thought about. I guess they can be pretty annoying. And the are clever! In Europe we face the challenge that our local squirrel is challenged by a foreign squirrel, originating from the US (I am not sure about this). Right now the larger, faster and more clever conquerer squirrels are south of the alps… but both look cute, large or small
July 12th, 2007 at 5:33 am
Wow! Never heard of a gopher, Maria …(running out, looking for dictionary…runs back)…aha! Now I understand…seems to be a shrunk prairie dog kind of thing. Good luck with them, they look cute, too!
July 12th, 2007 at 6:06 am
Gophers do resemble prairie dogs. But they are not cute! They have two big enormous teeth in front–not canines, incisors. Big, ugly teeth. Bad, bad animals. :-)
July 12th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Summer cleaning of fragrant studious must be in the air ;-) I tend to find the most astonishingly surprising finds when I delve into one of my little storage chest for one thing or the other.
If that is a Swiss squirell, it must be xtraordinarily well fed - maybee it’s due to it’s carnivourus habits LOL it’s Swedish cousins are lean imean fighting machines in comparison and how Fiona would like to be able to catch one of them;-)
July 13th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Dear Ylva
It is not really a Swiss squirrel… more on the US side, I guess. Rather heavy for a squirrel , but this must be the diet.indeed! Have a wonderful weekend.