Sharing Community - It's a Challenge

The morning Internet headlines tell me a sea turtle tangled in lobster lines was set free. I feel good.  I read they’ve assessed it to be 1000 pounds and at least six-feet long.  A magnificent animal, I’m thinking.  And, “once it was free it calmed down and swam away”.   One community helping another, doesn’t that make you feel good?

This morning I also learned a neighborhood resident (not my neighborhood) is so upset about a ground hog burrowed under the neighbors out building she wants them to get rid of the animal.  The sympathetic neighbor contemplates contaminating the burrowed entrance to the rotund rodents home with a toxic substance.  I don’t feel good about that.  It is secluded from expected human traffic.  In this instance I wish both parties would keep and eye out and strive to ‘live and let live’. 

I am also near an area where deer peer at us from stands of trees providing a lovely wooded ambiance in an area of lovely homes.  Dear God, please don’t let me see a deer lying prone, at the side of the street one day.  It happens because we’ve moved into their environment with all the human-made hazards we bring to what was life in the wild.  

An exterminator told me squirrels are taught by their parents to find nesting places in our homes.  We’ve cut down trees, removed what was their natural habitat so they have adjusted.  They learn to use what is available.

Once, searching for the source of a foul smell emanating from my own basement, a dried carcass of a squirrel was found.  Then a small squirrel inched out to almost snuggle against my daughter’s shoe.  It followed her out doors but lingered nearby as we stood discussing the orphan we found and how it must have happened.  Could the mother have died giving birth? How did the squirrel manage to survive?  We did decide the squirrel knew our voices and was comfortable, having lived in our basement since it was born.   Even months later, we would see the squirrel sitting on the deck railing holding something between its front paws, munching as it faced the back door.  If he/she came around after that summer, I didn’t recognize our former housemate.  This one, shown here, enjoyed Autumn at my house.

 When I was a kid, squirrels were only cute, “Oh look, a squirrel!”  No more. Too many of the bushy tailed invaders have had to be removed from inside my home.   What’s more the difficult attempt to secure the building against their determined search for nesting space is too much for me to ‘like’ them.  Once a contractor assured me the vent window under the peak of the roof had been securely fortified.  “I did ‘this’ inside; I did ‘that’ outside.  Squirrels will never get entry through here again.”  A couple days later we saw a huge red, brown and muted black squirrel up there working on that window, gnawing away.   The local squirrel community had sent for heavy-duty help.  He didn’t break through.  That was several years ago.   I’m not feeling totally secure, although I am smiling.  I’m winning, so far.