Let's look beyond the petty things

A while back I read that someone was planning to open a new restaurant in town. I naturally assumed it would be a place to get a bite to eat and perhaps visit with friends. I was wrong.

I now believe it is a hidden food establishment catering to squirrels. They began serving breakfast in the past few days. My evidence of this is the gray squirrel running through the driveway last week. It had a piece of toast in its mouth. Not part of a slice, but an entire slice toasted to perfection. I didn’t see any jelly or butter on the bread but the critter was going too fast to be certain.

In addition to toast, the squirrel restaurant offers corn on the cob as a portable meal. The empty cobs litter our yard in hopes that they will trip up the resident people who live here. Rounding out the menu are walnuts. These are offered only on the condition that the nuts be split so that one side is razor sharp and the shells are left anywhere humans tend to walk barefooted.

I think it is a carry-out only sort of place, or maybe the owners have decided my property is the perfect site for outdoor dining. They need a busboy as the remnants of their meals scatter across our lawn.

You may have seen restaurants with a play area. The squirrel cafe caters to the rodents that like to dig. They dig random holes in the grass in hopes that the humans will trip and fall. They consider this to be very entertaining.

In the spring the squirrels are told that there are many gladiolus bulbs to be had for the taking. This must be a special treat as they seldom miss any of the bulbs and I have given up on planting glads.

For added excitement there are the hawks. The hawks seem to prefer birds to squirrels although there have been a couple of squirrels that met their maker in the last few months. I think it was the hawks who got them.

Speaking of hawks, there was a giant one in the yard last week. He sat on the ground and allowed us to take note of his beauty. I didn’t realize it could turn its head almost 180 degrees. He eventually got tired of posing and flew up into a tree where we lost track of him.

So what do hungry squirrels and hawks have to do with anything? In this day and age of so-called fake news, intolerance and general meanness we need to remember that all of this is irrelevant. We humans are only a fraction of the living beings on this big blue marble we call home. Many of the things we stress about don’t really matter to other species or those within our own species.

Squirrels don’t care how much I paid for gladiolus bulbs. They are thinking of their next meal and their own personal safety. They firmly believe that anything I plant is for them. They are not above tasting tomatoes and deciding to leave them on the vine with teeth marks on them or digging up begonias I planted in Mom’s memory.

From what I can tell, most animals don’t engage in meanness for meanness sake. If they have a problem with other members of their species, they take care of it one-on-one. I often wonder what little birds are thinking when they pester larger birds. Is it some kind of retaliation for something known only to them? Or is it a game where one little bird will dare the other one?

I believe that most of us want to live our own lives without interference from others. By writing about squirrels I want you to remember that there is a big, beautiful world out there that deserves far more attention than we usually give it. There’s more to life than all the pettiness we hear or read about.  Despite my feelings about the local wildlife, the world is a better place because they are in it. Now, if I could find that squirrel cafe I would ask them to quit using our yard as a dining room or at least hire a busboy.