Jeremy Squirrel - Who Exactly Is the Boss Around Here?

There's a saying: If you can't beat them, join them.

We're hoping we've resolved the Barbara vs Jeremy debacle, especially since Jeremy was kicking my butt and winning the battle.

So I called Dad for help. He made Jeremy a Squirrel Condo, lined with nothing less than carpeting. It sits in my kitchen waiting for a couple coats of paint.

We're hoping that Jeremy will be so in love with the condo that he'll opt to live in it instead of inside the garage.

I just need to find some time to do the painting.

Saturday morning I slept late. I'd been on duty with Red Cross as a Personal Disaster Assistant. We are on call throughout the night and weekends in the event of a disaster in our city. It can be a huge incident like the flooding in New Orleans or it could be the pipes breaking in an apartment and flooding the occupants out.

Red Cross is there for those people who don't have insurance or a place to go. We'd had a call at 4:00 a.m. and when I got home I got a couple hours sleep and then had to work all day. So I was catching up on sleep.

Jeremy noticed that his breakfast was late that morning. When I finally showed up in my kitchen he was there outside the window. Waiting. He perched himself on the top of the trellis so he could do surveillance through the kitchen window to see when I finally got my lazy self out of bed.

He saw me. I saw him. He twitched his tail. He was sending me a message. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what he wanted.

I put my hat on and went out. I gave him some peanuts and watched while he stuffed sunflower seeds into his face like me with the chicken balls at the Mandarin buffet. I noticed he was looking a little bit heavy....

He was tilting his body a bit from side to side while sitting up. I've seen this before in older squirrels. I don't know what it is. It could be old age, neurological issues, or injury, but I have seen this balance issue with squirrels a few times in the past.

Don't worry. It won't slow Jeremy down. There was an old black squirrel years ago that had a balance problem. He lived for years laying down to eat his sunflower seeds. He was a little bit heavy too....

Maybe I'll put the new squirrel house inside the garage. That should make it more tempting for Jeremy.