Squirrel Neighbour

We have a new neighbour at This Canadian Yurt.  Well, half neighbour, half pet.  (He'd resent that, but i don't care.) 

He's moved into the yurt's 'basement' (read: wood storage space).  He likes to take his breakfast on our 'patio' (read: large doorstep) at 8.30am & returns for dinner about an hour before sunset.  Not a fussy eater - rice, toast crumbs, slivers of butter. 

Dodo Beijing

i've lived with a squirrel before.  Five months in Beijing.  They're brazen creatures with a childish sense of humour.  Dodo, the squirrel, was more trouble than the 2 year old boy who named him.  Forever sneaking into the kitchen & eating the veggies; or knocking over glasses of milk, coffee, green tea, anything really...  When you were in a hurry to go out & needed him inside his enclosure, he'd always find a new place to hide.  He could run fast & would play dirty.  He ate a precious Indian mala (rosary) of mine.  i knotted all 108 beads back together & now i savor his teeth marks in the beads.  i loved that infuriating squirrel.

So, i consider myself prepared for this wild one, with his punky red hair.  He is called Dodo Rouge & seems to be either a relative or reincarnation of Chinese Dodo.  

i saw him the other morning considering daylight yurt robbery.  i could tell from his defiant stance: one paw resting delinquently on the very camera i’d placed there to capture him.  Ears back, eyes shiftily casing the joint.  i gave him the stink-eye to let him know that he’d have a fight on his furry wee hands if he set so much as a claw inside my pad.  He held my gaze like a bad-ass gangsta.  Unwilling to be intimidated on home-turf, i stepped toward him.  He shot, a red streak of lightening, into the nearest tree & squeak-barked a string of what i’m sure were squirrel profanities & cusses at me – swearing revenge when i least expected.

Yo! He was all up in my face!

And you know you've spent the winter in Canada when it's -2C yet feels warm enough to sit outside for an entire day & write poetic musings. i may post the musings another time.  They're less cute than the squirrel though - he had to come first.

This post is for my Mum who defines squirrels as 'rabbits who cheat' because they run up trees when being pursued by her dogs.  And for Kieran Lewis Singleton, who entered the world last week...may all your pets be as ACE as the Dodos!

"'Did i leave the gas on?' No of course not...i'm a bloody squirrel"  Eddie Izzard