"On Sparring With a Squirrel"

He makes his appearance known every morning, blithely scampering across the top of the fence as though he were a high-wire walker, this little rodent I have been at war with for the past several weeks.  Well, “war” is probably too strong of a word.  More like a tug-of-war as he and I spar with one another.  While I generally don’t class squirrels as rodents, I do believe they are in the same family. 

Let me preface this by saying I am not an animal person.  A people person, yes, but not animals.  I don’t have anything against them, they just haven’t been my “cup of tea.”

The war started when I began a sweeping clean-up of my back yard. 

One of the projects included dealing with a bird feeder which had not been in use for quite sometime.  Unbeknownst to me, wasps had taken up residence inside, building a nest.  Of course I did not realize this until I aggressively turned it upside down, and they made themselves evident.  Anxious to get my feeder back in working order so I could welcome birds into my back yard, I waited until dark, stuffed the openings and sprayed wasp spray into the main body. 

Nursing a bee sting on my hand, what seemed like a pretty straight-forward task had already become complicated.

Feeder all prepped and filled with feed, I decided to move it to a location more readily visible from my kitchen window, taking into account the local squirrel’s habit of helping himself to the feed as well.  I sat back awaiting the influx of birds.  At the end of my workday I was thrilled to discover evidence that the feeder was working as bird seed was scattered upon the ground.

And so it continued for several days UNTIL I happened to be looking out the window when the resident squirrel made his appearance.  These little guys are quite the acrobats and could certainly qualify for an Olympics’ standing broad jump.  Leaping a span of several feet from the fence to the feeder, he had helped himself, without so much as leaving a thank you note.  It was he who had scattered the seed, not any visiting birds.

And so the tug-of-war began.  Intent upon feeding birds, not squirrels, I moved the feeder to another location, not taking into account his ability to scale vertical posts and access the feeder with no effort.  He had arrived upon a gold mine—food, readily available, and he took advantage of it immediately.

Once again the feeder was relocated to a space farther away from the fence, and this is when said varmint/rodent/squirrel earned my respect.

I watched as he made his usual morning arrival, fully expecting to have a meal fit for a king, breakfast on a platter.  Stopping, he sat on his haunches, and I could almost hear him thinking, the wheels grinding inside his head.  For the longest time, he perched atop the fence, calculating whether or not he was going to be able to reach the feeder by jumping.  His human counterparts would have jumped first and fallen “splat” upon the ground before realizing what had worked prior wasn’t going to work this time around.

This was not just instinct, but intelligence.  I saw it in his eyes.  He turned away, off to consider another plan, another approach.

There are some who are of the belief that all of the world as we know it evolved, that it began as a force, developing and changing to what we see and know today.  I am not one of those.  It is my belief that the world and everything in it, all that we see and know and all that we don't see and don't know, was created by God.   As a gardener, I see what happens around me.  As they say, “Compost happens.”  There is always a breakdown of matter, and it returns back to where it came from; it doesn't become something different.

That little squirrel was created with intelligence to live and to survive in his world, as are we all.  Intelligence is but one aspect of being a created being, personality and individuality yet others.  One only need look around at the state of our world and mankind to realize there is no evolving taking place.

If such care and thought was given to the creation of a small being, how much more so to us as the human race, created in the image of God?  In mankind’s effort and desire to control all things, including his destiny, he has forgotten where he has come from and the source of it all.  When the most important piece is not factored in, humanity is setting itself up, a recipe for disaster. 

I do wonder what it is going to take before the world wakes up to the truth. 

The little squirrel comes back every morning, checking to see if things have changed.  I think I’ll probably be buying some food for him.