(Sub)urban survival - Part One
IT started out friendly enough, my relationship with Steve the squirrel.
But like so many blossoming friendships, things quickly turned sour.
The build up of resentment, the bitterness, the distrustful looks, all contributed to the messy end of what was once a promising relationship between man and beast.
Like so many similar tales, it started one spring weekend. As I glanced out of kitchen window and despaired at the amount of weeds infiltrating the onion bed, I spotted a little ball of grey fur darting across the lawn.
Excited as five-year-old I Immediately grabbed a few brazil nuts from the kitchen cupboard and headed outside to confront our garden visitor. To my utter delight, he didn't dart off to the safety of next door, fleeing from the big scary man with a manic grin.
Over the course of a few weeks, and taking my queue from the Bird Man of Alcatraz, I'd tamed my new wild friend enough to feed him a few nuts by hand.
Along with the family of flea-ravaged pigeons and the nervous ginger tom cat, he became part of the menagerie of animals that use my back garden as a kind of drop-in centre for wayward wildlife.
I say him, I've never got close enough to carry out a full medical. Nor, I hasten to add before you turn your computer off and call the SSPCA, do I have any plans to. Doctor Doolittle I'm not.
Admittedly, calling him Steve wasn't the best of ideas as it's also the name of a close friend who, upon hearing of his tree-dwelling rodent namesake, was less than enamoured. I couldn't blame him really.
Not to mention my father-in-law's look of bewilderment when we I explained I'd caught Steve hanging upside down from the bird feeder trying to scrape out the remaining seeds. "He doesn't look agile enough," was his response.
One day recently, I kid you not, I left the house only to find my new furry friend sitting on the doorstep awaiting his daily nut feast. He even began following me down the street like a lost puppy as I made my way to the bus stop. "Steve, you can't come with me, go home," I ordered him before realising I was talking to a squirrel and quickly stopped before anyone noticed.
But time changes everything.
To be cont'd...
But like so many blossoming friendships, things quickly turned sour.
The build up of resentment, the bitterness, the distrustful looks, all contributed to the messy end of what was once a promising relationship between man and beast.
Like so many similar tales, it started one spring weekend. As I glanced out of kitchen window and despaired at the amount of weeds infiltrating the onion bed, I spotted a little ball of grey fur darting across the lawn.
Excited as five-year-old I Immediately grabbed a few brazil nuts from the kitchen cupboard and headed outside to confront our garden visitor. To my utter delight, he didn't dart off to the safety of next door, fleeing from the big scary man with a manic grin.
Over the course of a few weeks, and taking my queue from the Bird Man of Alcatraz, I'd tamed my new wild friend enough to feed him a few nuts by hand.
Along with the family of flea-ravaged pigeons and the nervous ginger tom cat, he became part of the menagerie of animals that use my back garden as a kind of drop-in centre for wayward wildlife.
I say him, I've never got close enough to carry out a full medical. Nor, I hasten to add before you turn your computer off and call the SSPCA, do I have any plans to. Doctor Doolittle I'm not.
Admittedly, calling him Steve wasn't the best of ideas as it's also the name of a close friend who, upon hearing of his tree-dwelling rodent namesake, was less than enamoured. I couldn't blame him really.
Not to mention my father-in-law's look of bewilderment when we I explained I'd caught Steve hanging upside down from the bird feeder trying to scrape out the remaining seeds. "He doesn't look agile enough," was his response.
One day recently, I kid you not, I left the house only to find my new furry friend sitting on the doorstep awaiting his daily nut feast. He even began following me down the street like a lost puppy as I made my way to the bus stop. "Steve, you can't come with me, go home," I ordered him before realising I was talking to a squirrel and quickly stopped before anyone noticed.
But time changes everything.
To be cont'd...
posted by St8rk at
12:09 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home