Winter Doldrums

It’s Wednesday, so I have a perfunctory rant/rave. Sort of.

Wednesday is as good a day of the week as any to rant and/or rave. It’s now the mid-winter high point, which in western NY, late January, means cabin fever has firmly taken hold and there remain only 45 days of claustrophobic cloud cover before March snowstorms commence. If that doesn’t slip one into a ranting/hysterical raving mood on a late January Wednesday, nothing will.

I generally reserve rants for squirrels, feral cats or neighborhood busybodies. The serious subjects of life, to be sure, but not necessarily on everyone’s radar. Most ranters/ravers tend to get preoccupied with subtler life issues; work, family, macramé and IRAs. What is the purpose of ranting over such arcane issues, I ask you? In the scheme of things, the latter will haunt us our entire lives. The former, on the other hand, offer a quick guerrilla hit and retreat rant opportunity. I’m after instant gratification.

Take squirrels, for example. I hate squirrels, which in retrospect, could have something to do with the fact that I have six black walnut trees in my yard. And a handy detached carriage house, suitable for these nut-thieving rodents to store their fall booty.

Every spring I shovel piles of discarded walnut shells from the inside corners of my beloved carriage house, all the while bristling at the audacity of squirrels I imagine sitting around with a smile on their mug as they enjoy walnut fruit at my expense, under cover of my carriage house roof.

And, every summer, I examine the structure in minutiae for potential points of entry the interlopers have used; a hole large enough not only for the squirrel, but also to permit a sack of whole walnuts to slip through.

I have yet to find such a hole, which leads me to one of two conclusions. Either the squirrels have perfected a means of spiriting themselves and their nuts through walls or one of them has a key.

This past summer I committed to all-out warfare.

I made an important discovery during the off-season: dried, concentrated, organic fox pee. The disproportionate heft of the small container I ordered over the internet suggested its ultimate level of concentration. I imagined something nuclear, with a half-life of a several millennia but, no, the label stated that the ingredient inside was simply concentrated fox pee, suitable to scare any varmint that might have reason to be concerned that there is a fox about. That would include squirrels, of course.

The label also suggested that other urines, namely bobcat and coyote are available and should be employed if the problem happened to be an invasion of domestic cats, armadillos or javalinas. Not this year.

The label conveniently pointed out advantage of powdered urine over traditional liquid.

-Powdered urine is less messy than liquid urine

-Powdered urine won’t evaporate or freeze

-Urine granules are naturally moist for better “clinging”

Oh, and this important safety tip: This Product is NOT For Human Consumption. Interesting. I made a mental note.

All that remained was to sprinkle the pee pellets on paper plates and place strategically around the inside of squirrel central.

So far this winter I haven’t seen hide or hair of trespassing squirrels nor are there any discarded walnut shells. Heh, heh. Varmints in the crosshairs.


I did, however, find this unusual calendar hanging on the wall.