Let’s talk about squirrels. I’m aware that many of you already are groaning, so I’m going all in: I love ‘em.
I didn’t always delight in squirrels, or any of the feral fauna that populate our yards. But I never hated them. Like many people, I was indifferent: Squirrels were just there.
My fondness for squirrels began about five years ago, and the root cause was the Southwest High School Nordic team of which both of my daughters, Daisy and Lily, were members. (Go, Lakers!) Each year at the end of the season they hosted an awards ceremony and catered Mexican buffet. I would work fluffing the tablecloth and cutting cake, and at the end of the evening there were always lots of leftovers. It was 2017, and there was a run on the meat, cheese, beans, guacamole, etc., leaving only bags and bags of tortillas going begging. I said I’d take two packages. When I got home I discovered that someone had snuck in the bag two more packages (36 tortillas each) leaving me with 144 tortillas—a gross—of corn tortillas which I do not like. I favor the flour variety.
I put them in the freezer and embarked on a giving (getting rid of) mission. No takers. A month later I had a party and needed room in the freezer so I moved the gross of gross tortillas to the adjunct freezer, aka the back porch. The day after the party, when I’d unsuccessfully tried to foist the tortillas on guests like so many parting booby-prizes (again, no takers) I went to the porch to retrieve the partially thawed tortillas and noticed a forlorn squirrel in the yard, desperately foraging for food. If squirrels lived on snow, he could have had his fill, but that’s not how it works. So, I flung out one of the tortillas, and I swear Mr. Squirrel looked at me and said, "Thank you, dear Lady." This made me happy.
So, I threw out a few more. Half an hour later they were gone. Finally, I found takers! Sometimes I got to watch the squirrels devour the bounty, holding a tortilla, chomping on it like an old typewriter, clickety clack. Word got out that it was party in Dorothy’s back yard and soon I had a scurry of squirrels. When I ran out of tortillas, I Googled “What do squirrels eat?” And I learned that barks, twigs and soil are a good source of minerals and roughage, but their favorite food is dried corn on the cob—hence their robust attitude toward my corn tortillas.
Squirrels are basically herbivores but, when desperate, will dine on caterpillars, crickets and larvae: pest control! I’ve discovered they also like leftover salad, vegetables, bread, fruit and the occasional piece of chicken. As a lousy cook, I deeply appreciate my most grateful guests.
In the midst of the tortilla festival, I was at a party, talking with a very intelligent man, and we had a frighteningly stupid conversation. Only the Messiah knows how we got on the topic, but I confessed to him that I loved squirrels. His response was “Ugh. They’re rats with furry tails.” I argued that they have fur all over their bodies, and he contended that their body fur wasn’t so furry as the tail. I countered that it was still furrier than a rat’s. Pure sophistication.
Still, the “rats with furry tails” comment haunted me, and I wondered, are squirrels, like war, good for absolutely nothing? So, I turned again to Google and asked, “What do squirrels contribute to the world?” And I learned that squirrels are a vital part of our ecosystem. They shape plant composition, taking seeds and burying them in undisclosed locations. It turns out they’re not real smart and often forget where they left them. The result is that we get trees. Thank you very much—a lot cheaper than Bachman’s and more prolific than Johnny Appleseed: There are approximately two billion squirrels in the United States and four to ten billion worldwide. Squirrel census-taking, like so much of our lives, is a capricious discipline.
As they say, you can take the girl out of the farm, but, well, you know the rest.
– Dorothy
