by Jack Pine

Created on: January 15, 2008

When squirrels are not chasing the opposite sex, they seem to have only one other thing on their minds-eating. Every bit of their energy and resourcefulness seems to be devoted to this pursuit, and they let nothing stand in their way.

I once lived in an apartment on the shore of Lake Michigan. The apartment had an eastern exposure that faced the lake, wooden floors, and a series of side-by-side cased windows in the living room that looked collectively like a big picture window. Just outside, between my apartment and the lake, was a park with many large, old oak trees, which were home to a well-established squirrel population.

Whenever I was bored, I enjoyed sitting at the sill of the windows, watching the squirrels play in the park. One day, while sitting there, a squirrel surprised me by appearing outside suddenly on the sill of the window I was looking through. When it saw me, it stopped and just looked as if it were waiting for something. When I moved slightly, it became startled and jumped down from the sill and ran back to the park. Then I got an idea.

I had an old bag of peanuts in one of my kitchen cabinets, so I went and got it. I came back to the window, opened it, and then slid the screen up. I placed a few peanuts on the outside sill, and waited.

The squirrel must have been watching me from some lofty tree branch nearby, because within a couple of minutes, it had returned and was sneaking cautiously along the sill outside until it reached the spot where I had placed the peanuts. Apparently, it accepted them in the spirit they were offered, because it sat there calmly, cracking open the shells, getting at the nuts inside, and it didn't seem nervous about me watching. When it finished eating, it looked at me as if to say, "Is that all?"

When I did nothing, it jumped down and ran off to the park again.

Everyday, I began to leave a little pile of peanuts for my newfound friend in the evening when I came home from work. Everyday, it came to visit and gobble them down. Eventually, I could sit by the window and hold a peanut outside, and the squirrel would creep toward me and take it with its tiny, little hands. At first, it would take the peanut and run off somewhere to eat it. But after a while, I gained its trust. It took my hand-held offerings, ate them right there in front of me, and waited for more.

One day I forgot to leave a pile of peanuts for the squirrel because I had arrived home late, and didn't have time to wait at the window. I had however, opened

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