Squirrel Appreciation... 🤔

We don't blog because, well, social media apps. Instagram is where I am (@shelterwood_gardens or @frankmeuschke), although it delivers more grief than blogger, but there is an instant audience. That fact seems to keep many of us long-time bloggers on our phones. I will try to upend that by, at first, reposting and building upon wordy posts from that other platform. This is one from January 21, Squirrel Appreciation Day, 2024.

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The squirrels have had quite a winter so far. Is it the lack of snow or the mast year full of acorns? In winter they often get up after sun up, warm in the sun, before making as few journeys across the land as possible. Not this winter. Daily, up before sunrise, chasing each other, bounding from tree to tree, and remaining active for most of the day. Earlier in winter the larger Fox Squirrels were more abundant, but now the gray dominate. When I leave our place in the woods, it may be the squirrels I’ll miss more than any other wildlife as they animate the yard, living as close to us as possible with only modest interaction between us.

I know this is not the position of many people. There are few posts on this blog more visited than the one about drowning squirrels (not me!). In urban settings squirrels are often considered a pest. They bite each tomato! They nip the rose buds! They destroy my house! Curiously, they do none of those things at our place. Why? They have what they need within the woods here. They treat the house like a big boulder, present but of no interest. I have yet to see them take interest in the vegetable garden, but we also protect it from more interested parties.

Cities are the ultimate walled gardens. Within the city, ideas are cultivated about the value of wildlife, out there, in the wilderness. Yet wildlife, within its walls, is subject to other values. We aim to protect distant wilderness, and the creatures we identify with it, while we struggle with the wilderness within the walls of the garden.

We hold dear the preservation of wilderness. We head out to it for a taste of beauty, clean air, and wildlife. Given over to the experience, it can teach us that the way of wilderness is not aesthetic, is not perfection, is not harmony as we tend to think of it, but that wilderness is the walls torn down.

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day.