Live! Rude! Squirrels!

Photos by Hugo Campos

Oh, squirrels, how I adore you with your bushy tails and playful scampering up and down the redwoods, along the top of fences, on our rooftop. But stop it already with the digging in my pots - especially the ones I just planted. And were you crouched somewhere silently watching me as I swept the walkway clean, only to sully it once I went inside for lunch? I'll admit I was silently watching you once as you dangled upside down from an ironwood branch in our front garden. I gotta give you props for this clever ploy of accessing seeds from our so-called squirrel-proof birdfeeder. "Cirque du Soleil" has nothing on you!

And what's with the succulent-munching? How dare you extract my newly placed cuttings, nibble on the rosettes, and then cast off the stems as if they were apple cores! But I'll get over it, I suppose, as I did after the multiple times you toppled the buddha fountain, made mincemeat of the holiday string lights, and even destroyed a mourning doves' nest filled with precious life inside.

At the end of the day, I got to hand it to you, oh fast-and-furry ones. You bring life to the lil' patch of woodland paradise we call home. We're the ones fortunate to enjoy beautiful moments on your turf. Hearing you race across our roof in the morning is a gift - part of the natural soundtrack of our home. We may shake our heads, tighten our lips, even yell a little bit after discovering that you massacred the vertical garden wall hanging I just meticulously put together. But you bat those espresso bean-brown eyes and shimmy that bushy, upright tail, rendering us powerless and able to forgive you every time.