My Second Love/Hate Relationship

Squirrels. They are so entertaining. Daringly jumping from tree to tree, balancing upside down on bird feeders, making a race track in our backyard so they never have to touch the ground. I could watch them for hours.

But. Squirrels are a pain in the neck. They strip the bark off our trees, which may end up killing them. They eat so much of my bird food that I quit putting it out. They torment my dogs. Love/hate.

But I don't really hate them. Yesterday we were cleaning out the garden, and in the garden we have one of those "grow your tomatoes upside down" containers. I had seen a squirrel crawl out of it one day, and while he was working in the garden, Don looked in it. He could tell the squirrel was starting to build a nest in it, so we took it to the trash to dump it out. He took the top of the nest out and put it in the trash. "Eek, eek, eek." He heard the very loud squeals of a baby squirrel. Now what to do? I looked at him and we both agreed they are a pain, but we couldn't let the baby squirrel die. So Don did what any nice person would do. He put the nest back in the "grow your tomatoes upside down" container and hung it back in the garden. Not long after, the momma squirrel returned to her baby, and all was right with the world.

Love/hate relationships are complicated.