A squirrel in the house

Originally posted in 2009

Yesterday my brother sent email to all of us about a bird that got into his house.  With his previously known creative writing abilities I’m not quite sure if there really is a bird in his house, or if he’s going through some elaborate ruse leading up to April Fools Day.  That thought has serious possibilities.

Before we moved to our currently location we lived in an apartment at the back of a Church hall.  This place had character as it has been the original Church building for the parish prior to construction of the new Church…so this place had odd angles and nifty spaces.

For several weeks prior to Christmas one year I would wake my sweetie up during the night with, “did you hear that?!”  No, he was sleeping he didn’t hear that.  And of course, “that” whatever it was would then not make a sound.

This particular year I had a passion (still do) for hazelnuts.  I created a cake recipe using ground roasted hazelnuts in lieu of some of the flour.  Yummy.  I kept in-shell hazelnuts on the dresser that served as my counter.  One afternoon in a bit of haste I spilled cake batter on the hazel nuts and had to wash them off and leave them out to dry.  We headed to dmil’s for the weekend, for Christmas, upon returning found hazelnuts in the laundry basket, in the couch and several other odd places around the house.  Weird.

We noticed too that the webbing on the antique chair was hanging down, but didn’t think too much of it.

On this particular morning we need to be in before 10 because my sweetie is making lunch for the men where we work.  Again I poke him awake at some point during the night, “didja hear that?!”  It was about time to get up, he looks and finds a squirrel on the stairs!

I knew I was hearing something.

Now the fun begins…he tries to chase the squirrel down the stairs.  Somehow this creature gets under the refrigerator.  (How is that even possible?!)  He opens the window, puts peanut butter at the open window to entice the squirrel and tries then to get it out from under the fridge.  No luck.

My Sweetie goes to get the maintenance man for help.  He has a thin stick and scoots it out from under the fridge and toward the living room rather than the open window.  The squirrel leaps into the chair, the antique one where the webbing was now hanging down.  This is where he’d been nesting all this time.  Bleepin’ squirrel.

The front door is open, maintenance man grabs chair and heads for the door.  The squirrel sensing his impending eviction from such a warm and squirrel friendly environment (hazelnut buffet at your service) decides to jump into the Christmas tree.  Maintenance man puts down the chair. He’s hitting the tree at the bottom, DH is hitting it at the top, squirrel is running up, down, up, down, up, down in a panic.  Finally on the down trip maintenance man doesn’t hit the bottom of the tree squirrel makes a break for freedom from this, now squirrel un-friendly environment, and bolts for the door.

Husband chases squirrel down the side of the building.

We plugged any holes we could find where said squirrel could potentially find his way to our apartment again.

No more squirrels in the house. No more finding hazelnuts in the laundry, on the stairs, in the couch cushion.

We arrived into work a bit late, and shared this tale with our boss who laughed heartily

No more waking DH up in the middle of the night saying, “Did you hear that?!”

Great party story told.

Teri

gratuitous quilt photo from the UConn Exhibit in December…cool huh!