Instant Karma's Gonna Get You- Squirrel Style

So..... many of you have asked about the squirrel bite in my tagging post. That bite, in an of itself, is not very interesting. However, I have a colorful history with these suckers.

In our old house, I started hearing noises....the pitter-patter of little feet in the eaves. I thought we had mice so I called an exterminator who told me that I had squirrels! He taught me the following facts:
1. Squirrels can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter.
2. They mate like crazy if they find a warm place to do so, i.e. your heated eaves.
3. They are territorial, so they will return to the nest.
4. It is illegal to kill squirrels in my state.

Very helpful, thanks. So we bought a humane squirrel trap. We learned that you catch more squirrels with peanut butter than cheese (Good one Dan! They'll love the Kraft singles!). Every morning for more than a week we would catch a squirrel and drive them miles away to the forest preserve (aka squirrel park to my kids) where they could be reunited with other squirrels. After we trapped and released for a while, Dan got up on the roof to seal off the tiny entrance. Thus, I thought my squirrel days were over.

Fast forward a year and we moved into a new house, another 100+ year old house. We got all garden-y at this house. One day, Dan in an effort to be helpful, comes home from the Costco with a ginormous bag of gladiola bulbs. We're talking more than 100 bulbs. And I planted every one of those suckers and I don't even LIKE gladiolas. Guess what? Squirrel fact #5, Squirrels LOVE plant bulbs. They are like CRACK to squirrels. Forget the nuts, plant some bulbs! The squirrels ate some in the fall and the remainder in the spring when they sprouted. Needless to say, I was pissed.

Enter the squirrel bite. We had become a popular hangout for the squirrel crowd. Party in the nerds' yard, bring your squirrel posse! I was feeding them bulbs and the neighbors were feeding them nuts, why wouldn't they like our yard? One day, I was going into the alley, not paying attention and laid my hand on the ivy covered fence gate. A squirrel was there, he bit me and hissed. Thankfully, no skin was broken so no rabies shots for me!

So then I blog about my squirrel bite. Enter Karma, with a capital K. Not 24 hours after I post about the bite, I'm in the guest room at night and hear scratching. Damned if it wasn't a varmint trying to chew his way out of the wall. I wake Dan. He was really helpful, "Go back to sleep honey, you're imagining things." Ha! In the morning he claims he was just trying to get me to go back to sleep but really believed me, but I digress. The varmint was bigger than a mouse, trust me, and he really liked the taste of the wood trim. I spent most of the morning stomping on the floor and knocking on the walls yelling, "Show yourselves you little bastards!"

So my hero puts out the squirrel trap, and not 24 hours later, there is silence in the house, no varmints. Dan finds a squirrel hole on the roof (he's now an expert on identifying squirrel gnaw marks) and seals it up.

Which brings us to squirrel fact #6, Squirrels read the blog.

For your viewing pleasure, I've inserted some gratuitous Star Wars-themed squirrel pics. And if you want to see way more photos of squirrels dressed up in funny outfits, click here it's where I got the photo of the Darth Vader Squirrel. I rather enjoyed the site, seeing someone dress up the squirrels and post some humiliating pictures of them on the web. Take that squirrels!