why is it ...

... that I am always the only adult in the house when something traumatic happens?

When the dog returns a ball on three legs, the fourth dripping blood.

When, after I have checked out that bleeding dog for two minutes, the toddler comes up to me with miscellaneous berries in her hand and I end up having to induce vomiting (no berries, whew).

When a different dog returns a different ball on three legs, the fourth dripping blood, and he ends up needing emergency care to determine it's a broken nail with the break so high up under the skin that he needs to be put out so it can be cauterized.

When there's a )#($*#&*^ squirrel in the house...................................


This evening I'm throwing the purple dolphin through the kitchen into the back hallway for the Buzzboy, and I think I see something run across the back hallway.

"Naw" I think, optimistically. "I just imagined it."

Wilbur was sure I had NOT imagined it, and went in hot pursuit.

Sure enough, there was something there, and that something was a squirrel. Where it came from, we don't know yet, but the back door was closed, so the "where" has to be bad news........

The squirrel ran up various things, and ran through various rooms. It knocked over plants in the family room, and ran back and forth across the table. It was trying the windows in the family room, in part, I suspect, because the patio lights were on. (It was dark out when I got home at 6:00........)

How I wished one of the family room windows were wide open, but I didn't know how to get one open without scaring the beast into the rest of the house............


I opened the door to the back yard, and turned off the outside lights. Then I tried to block the ways into the living room and upstairs, hoping to try to shoo it through the kitchen, and out the back door. Knowing, of course, that squirrels are prodigious jumpers, and my feeble attempts to block it were laughable. Steer it, maybe perhaps, but block it? As if.....

I put Buzz in the crate in the kitchen, so he wouldn't block the exit, and then I called Burt to help me chase it (as he had been much more interested than Buzz, who, I think, reacted more to all the excitement than to the actual rodent -- which is odd, now that I think of it -- Buzz is more interested in chasing invaders of every kind out of the yard than Burt is....).

I couldn't find Burt, and when I went into the family room to open a window, there was no sign of a squirrel still there.

Eventually Burt came in from outside. I don't see how he can have chased it out without me hearing a commotion while I was trying to make it harder for the squirrel to go upstairs.

But there has been no evidence of a squirrel since before I started trying to guide it out the back door. No more scurrying sounds. No more evidence that the boys think anything weird is happening.

I'm afraid I am not calm in this sort of situation. Squealing and stomping occurred when I was being surprised by the invader. Which is why, now that I think of it, Buzz wasn't more intrigued by the indoor rodent. He was freaked because I was freaked.......... I bet.


We've had mice before, and they don't bother me a whit. But squirrels. Are much bigger. Have great nasty teeth. Run up things (and I'm a thing, with soft claw-able surfaces......).

Upon reflection, I have realized that having it upstairs actually would probably be better, as the upstairs is full of rooms with closeable doors, so it could potentially be trapped in a room and the window opened.

The downstairs is all open-plan (which I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal of, but nevermind)...............

I can still feel the effects of all that adrenaline. (Something else I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal of!)


Please hope for me that the squirrel made it out of the house and is GONE.

I am home alone until after 11:00 tonight.............................


update -- dh home. Sitting at the table, telling the whole story, I notice ... something ... behind the portable tv in the family room corner. Hoping it's a stuffed animal, I make dh look............. Nope, a squirrel, he reports.

He thinks it has expired. I'm upstairs. He's going to prop open a window at that end of the family room, and pick up the tv..................

I'm upstairs. With the boys. He's downstairs, coping with our home invader.

Let's hope the heart attack theory prevails..............


update -- bad news -- it's alive. Worse news -- now we don't know where it is.............


update Nov. 14 -- this morning we bought a trap. Lowe's only had little traps (for chipmunks) and big traps (for raccoons). We went for the big one, and I hope that it's not too stiff for an animal the size of a fox squirrel to trip.... (I was pretty sure the little one was way to little to catch anything as big as a fox squirrel.)

We left home (for work) with the boys blocked in the kitchen and the trap set in the living room. I wired a piece of stale bread, slathered with peanut butter, to the bottom of the trap. I wished there had been a third person, to take pics, as DH lifted the trap so I could get at its bottom, I wired bread to the trap, and Buzz stuck his nose in, noting that he looooooves peanut butter, and working to get at least a little taste of it............ But no, only the two of us, you'll just have to imagine the scene.

This pic was taken after the successful installation of the bread/peanut butter, and I couldn't get him to stick his nose up against the bars for the camera. You can see what I mean about how big this trap is..... This is the back end of the trap. The snapping door is at the other end.

(That never was one of my favorite shower curtains.... It's under the trap in case we actually caught something that might pee in there whilst entrapped.)



Anyway.

Wish us luck....................


update Nov. 15 -- no news. We have had no evidence of any rodents in the house since DH saw the squirrel on Thursday night. No sounds, no nibble marks on anything, no nothing. The trap was in the kitchen overnight, and there are no lick marks on the peanut butter (despite Buzz's best efforts!)............

Weird.

I am sure it is in the house, but where, we have no idea..........


update Nov. 16 -- no news. Yesterday dh spent some time in the basement going through boxes of stuff from his past, and he saw no sign of the squirrel. No sign elsewhere in the house, either. We can't imagine how it can have gotten out without us knowing. And -- really -- I can't imagine why it would *want* to go out. Warm, dry, unlimited food. Squirrel heaven, no? But ... as far as we know, it hasn't eaten anything since it's been in the house.

Odd.

The trap has been in the basement since yesterday morning. I didn't check it this morning when I let the boys out and gave them their breakfast (and their pills, pills, pills). It makes a pretty good metallic snap when it closes; I'd think we'd have had some commotion in the night had it sprung. But maybe not.

Update from noon on the 16th -- nothing in the trap, no marks on the peanut butter.


update Nov. 16, 5:10 pm -- about 45 minutes ago, I heard Wilbur jump off our bed and run this way. I turned to look, and saw him go into the bathroom, which he essentially never does. (It is the *bath* room, after all.)

The squirrel ran out, and he went after it, and it went into what is euphemistically known as the sewing room, but which is hip deep in ... stuff.

The sewing room does have a door that closes. After you've moved all the stuff that was blocking it open........

I tossed the stuff out of the way and closed the door. We fetched the trap from the basement, noticing very small, wet (??) footprints on the steps, which I thought looked like they were going down........... We refreshed the peanut butter in the trap so it would smell lovely and enticing, put the shower curtain on the pile of junk, left the trap on it........................ Hoping the trap can still close and won't fall off the pile before it contains the squirrel.

Surely the squirrel has to be pretty hungry by now. We are not aware that it has eaten anything.......... So weird, that we haven't heard it at all...........


I have spent the intervening time trying to deal with the stuff pulled out of the doorway.

The whole PROBLEM is that the stuff has nowhere to go...................

I sorted out some fabric that can be donated, some clothes that can be donated, some camera manuals etc that actually do have a place. I shredded some old receipts and pay stubs. I sorted some magazines that can go to the library, and some others that I want to look through first. You can walk through the hallway now, but there is a lot of stuff that is still there.

Sigh. This is devolving from squirrel to purging. I hate them both.



update Nov. 17, 9:30 am -- No squirrel in the trap. We are sure it cannot have gotten out of the room without making enough noise (chewing through something) that we would have heard. No marks on the peanut butter.

I hadn't wanted to just open a window, given our inability to tell if the beast is still in the house, but there is enough snow on the family room roof (right outside the sewing room window) that I will be able to see footprints if it goes out.

I climbed over the junk, wrestled the window open (it hasn't been opened in years), propped it open and left the room (door to room closed the whole time, except for my ingress and egress).

Now if the little )#($&&^ will just GO OUT.

I don't think of squirrels as being stealthy, but this one is very good at lying low and not making a sound. For very long periods of time, in squirrel years. It has got to be hungry and thirsty............

Go out. Go out. Go out. Go out. Go out. Go out. GO OUT.

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