The story of Juanita, Juanita the Squirrel.
I think I should start by saying that our beginning was not on the right foot. I did not like them (“Sam I am” as in green eggs and ham). I had a first encounter back in college while taking French classes. One of them tried to share my coffee without my permission. It ended up in a screaming and a jumping scene from a bench. After that, predisposition was against them.Last summer they tried … And succeed, eating most of the seeds from my pots in my balcony garden. From that moment on.. It was war and very personal. I read and tried every single trick to keep them away from my garden. Did I mention how much they like cherry tomatoes? .. Specially my tomatoes plants by the way.
Later that summer, while my garden was blooming, full of flowers and some small fruits, attracting bees, butterflies and little birds, I realized that squirrels were part of the little ecosystem of the garden. By now, they did not eat the seeds, since seeds had turned in to plants. Now, they were using my gardening pots to hide food, peanuts was their preference. They hide them and in times were food were scarce they will go to their natural “pantry” to pick up what was save there.
I started to look for more info about squirrels. They might live between months to up to 10 years….. Yes, 10 years. They eat frugally in summer, hiding extra food in garden pots like mines, to use them later on when winter start to show up. In winter, they have to be very smart, make big decisions. By them, their body fat should have increased to deal with the cool temperatures. On cold days they will need to decide if it is worthy to go out or if that day they won’t eat but save some energy for next day’s adventures, when the weather gets better.
If they decided to go out, they will need to be sure that some food must be found…. Otherwise they will lose too much body fat that might diminish their probability to survive the whole winter. I start putting some peanuts to the squirrels that visited my balcony back in August…… Well, you know what they say: if you can’t deal with the enemy make an alliance with him. Now, I have turn into the safety place to find food for sure. Some birds are around the pine trees near my house, well… They need to survive as well.
Sometimes, you need to be there provider, somebody already have done the same for you and yours.
It’s nice to have breakfast in the morning while they are having some as well. It’s a beautiful scene. From a business point of view I can think on several words to describe them: marketing, strategic, advertising, surviving.
Enjoy your coffee, the type you want… Life is full of choices for everyone… I just made mine with crazy Juanita the squirrel.
See you tomorrow,
