Squirrelmagaddon (SOL18 #7)

Those who know me know that I hate squirrels. It stems back from an experience that I had when I was a little girl which is not a part of this story, but squirrels still totally creep me out. Knowing that about me will help you to see how incredibly traumatizing this experience was for me. 

Early one Saturday morning my furry friend Maiden jumped on my bed and nosed me in the face. That's her not so subtle signal to me that it's time for her to go outside. I throw the covers off, wipe the sleep from my eyes and slowly descended down the stairs wondering why she never bothers Phil this early. 

Now usually Maiden saunters out and does her business, but on this particular day she darted toward a hosta plant that was right beside the patio. I shooed her away from it knowing that there must have been something living lurking underneath it's full green leaves. I didn't want to find out what it was. 

As she walked away something caught her attention in the grass by the driveway. She ran to whatever it was and her nose was immediately glued to the object in the hopes of figuring out what had invaded her yard. I walked over, looked down and saw the lifeless body of a baby squirrel. Quickly shooing the dog away, yet again, I ran back inside and attempted to get my husband up to take care of it because I cannot handle dead animals. 

Since it was so early, he was not very responsive to getting up right away and getting the squirrel but assured me that it would be at the top of his list when he got up. 

Fast forward an hour when we walked outside together. He wanted me to show him where the squirrel was. I reluctantly walked back to the spot where I had last seen the squirrel. As he started to get a shovel to bury the little guy I noticed that Maiden went right back to that hosta plant and just stared. "What are you looking at now?!" I dreaded finding out. As I got closer to the hosta I heard a high pitched squeaking noise. The squeaking got louder and the hosta's leaves rustled. My heart jumped out of my chest. 

PHIL!!!!!

He took his time to come back to see what I was freaking out about this time. I told him to look under the hosta. Meanwhile I stood far enough away so whatever it was couldn't jump out at me, but close enough where I could see the mystery animal.

Another baby squirrel. This one was alive though. Phil immediately went into animal lover mode and wanted to help it. I immediately went into freak out mode because I didn't want to adopt a potentially injured baby squirrel. I started pacing because I was nervous and I didn't want to get too close to it. As I paced I looked down and saw it. 

TWO MORE BABY SQUIRRELS. 

We are up to three at this point. This was all too much. Truly, in my mind, it was the things nightmares are made of. All of these squirrels were not out in the open when I had gone out first thing in the morning. Now it seemed like they were dropping out of the trees and taking up residence on our lawn.

After my animal loving husband put out some water and cereal for them (because obviously the squirrels would love some cereal) we decided to let nature take its course and see if they would end up leaving on their own accord. 

Luckily for me... we came back after grocery shopping and the three survivors of squirrelmagaddon had found there way to a new tree.