Odd Memories

I keep thinking about the days of the squirrels in our house. So today I sat down and wrote about it. Here it is. Forgive me for any typos or grammatical errors. I’m quite tired and can’t quite see straight. But here it is.

Squirrels in the Stone House

The first encounter took place between Jenny and the squirrel.  Jenny and I had bravely decided to sleep in the basement on the bed that for some reason or other was set up in the big unfinished part of the basement. We left the washroom light on because the basement really is dark and scary at night. In the middle of the night I was rudely awakened by Jenny screaming and thrashing around in the bed. I wasn’t sure what all the excitement was about but I figured I’d better scream too. Funny what happens to our logic under those kinds of circumstances at that time of the night. So there we clung to each other shrieking. After a bit I saw a small animal disappear into the washroom. Jenny then informed me that it was that animal that had awakened her –it had been “huffling” around under the blankets.

Mom and Dad heard us squalling two stories up and to this day Clark regrets that he didn’t hear it from the next room. Huh, missed that party I guess. Anyway, Mom met us upstairs and tucked us into our normal, much safer bed. But we still couldn’t figure out what the critter was. It looked like a squirrel to me, but it was too small.

A week or so later Mom and Dad discovered that the beast was a flying squirrel. They caught him playing in the coats hanging under the steps.

Over this time we also had borders living out in what is now called “the boys’ cabin.” Dad discovered that they could put rat poisoning in the gap between the upstairs floor and the living room ceiling then shine a flashlight down the register and watch the squirrels eat. Jenny and I were tucked in bed one night and the guys were watching them through the register in the hall. All we could see of the fun was one of their back ends sticking into our bedroom through the open door. As little girls, we made hay on the fun possibilities before us—it was one of the borders we never really learned to know or like very well. But we never would have dared to actually do anything. We sure had a nice giggle party though.

The squirrels always stank terribly when they died in the walls—sometimes to the point of causing occupants to move out of their bedrooms for a while. Dreadful, I assure you.

We were headed out to PA for Lorinda’s wedding at five o’clock in the morning when anther squirrel made its appearance in the living room. Dad roared around with a broom after it for a while but gave up and somehow the squirrel disappeared and that left puzzlement in my mind.

Once we rid ourselves of the flying squirrels, the regular squirrels migrated inside to spend the winter. Mom was tucking us into bed one night when I had to run to the bathroom downstairs one last time. I encountered a squirrel under the dining room table, and being and excitable adolescent at the time, jumped and hollered—not once, but twice. When I got back upstairs and told Mom what I’d seen she said, “I figured, but why two shrieks?” I don’t know. I just remember it didn’t feel “finished” somehow after the first one.

We watched a mama squirrel mover her babies out of the house one spring. She brought them down the rocks outside on the dining room window sill. Mom didn’t have the heart to shoot them. Dad, of course, wondered why she didn’t. The logic was, “she was moving out anyway.”