Friday, February 06, 2009

The Squirrel Whisperer

Remember when Charlotte was persistent enough to get a pigeon to let her touch it in our backyard? Today she struck again, only this time with a squirrel. Or at least she would have if I had let her. Knowing her great ability to get otherwise wild animals to let her go near them I grabbed her away just before she actually touched it.

In case you didn't guess today is an unbelievably beautiful day in St. Louis. It's about 60 degrees out, but it has a light wind that makes it feel chillier. I decided to skip our usual Friday activities and packed a lunch and headed for the park. We played there from about 11:30 to 1:30 and I had to pull Charlotte off the slide to get her to go home. Then she blissfully fell asleep on the way home. After I pulled into the parking pad behind our house I turned around to see her little face, smeared with dirt and blackberry jelly asleep and smiling. It was awesome.

But back to the squirrel. This was an usually brave squirrel that saw we were eating a picnic lunch. It saw our bright orange carrot sticks and came to just the other side of the playground fence which is about 6 feet away. Charlotte had long since decided to not eat her carrot stick so I decided I'd let the squirrel have it. I threw it away from us and then asked Charlotte to watch the squirrel. Sure enough not two minutes had passed before the squirrel decided that he wanted that carrot stick more than he was scared of us. He climbed through the fence grabbed the stick then ran away. Charlotte was thrilled. She decided she wanted another carrot stick and ate hers, "just like the squirrel." I was thrilled. Then the squirrel came back. (This is where I became not so thrilled.) I let Charlotte go out and give the squirrel a quarter of a carrot stick. She went out as close as it would let her go (saying, "come mere squirrel, come mere) then dropped it and walked away a few steps. It took the carrot then ran away, and came immediately back. That squirrel knows a sucker when he sees one. In the end I let Charlotte give the squirrel about one and a half carrot sticks until I realized that the squirrel would probably just take the next piece right out of her hand! Which to my mind screamed danger. So then I decided we were done with our picnic. I've got to watch out for this one and the wild animals!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Charlotte's daddy had a "squirrel encounter", too. We were visiting Washington DC; while walking on the Mall and enjoying popcorn, a cheeky squirrel climbed right up his pants to get some popcorn. I don't remember him being very impressed by the event.

Katie said...

Once at the zoo I walked up to a squirrel and reached down to touch him. I thought for sure he would run away scared.

Nope.

He reached up and grabbed my finger with his little claws.

It freaked me out so bad that I jumped back, turned to the ear doctor and exclaimed, "he grabbed me!"


It's one of the ear doctor and my favorite moments.

Angelavon said...

that is so cute!