Baby Squirrel

You never know what’s going to happen from day to day on the farm. For the most part life is pretty quiet and you go about your days in simple routines. Then life throws something in your path that reminds you of how precious life really is.

 

Take for instance this little gal. The day before Mother’s Day I was out filling my bird feeders like I usually do on Saturdays. We have two very old trees in our front yard. One is a seckel pear tree and we aren’t sure what the other one is. They are similar, not very big and old enough to have enough holes in them for critters. I hang my feeders from the pear tree.

 

The previous fall we had seen an adult gray squirrel sneaking food from our feeders and hiding it in the hole of the other tree. Try as we might, we could not get her to stop. We finally gave up.

 

Come spring we saw her less, but still saw her from time to time heading from my feeders. Then one day on my way home from work, I noticed a dead squirrel in the road in front of our house.

 

Now we live in the country and a dead squirrel in the road is not usually uncommon. In fact, I hadn’t really given it much thought until that Saturday before Mother’s Day.

 

Peaking out of the whole of the other tree, I noticed a little face watching as I filled the feeders. I had never seen a baby squirrel before and ran to get Dennis, who was working in the barn.

 

As we approached the tree, we realized two things: This little baby should not be peaking out of the tree by herself and more than likely, the squirrel that had been hit in the road, had been her mother.

 

We were able to coax this little squirrel out of her hole and get her cozy in a box with a towel and also get her to drink some water. But mother squirrels we are not.

 

Luckily, we have wildlife rehabilitators in the area and we found a lady who was willing take the orphan in.

 

That Sunday, Mother’s Day, Dennis woke me early and we drove an hour to the lady who would care for our newest charge. Feeling bad that I didn’t get my honorary breakfast in bed, we went out for breakfast instead. We both agreed that we felt good saving the little squirrel and wished her well.

 

We’re not sure if the little critter made it or not. The person we took her too has a really good reputation and I am hoping our baby squirrel is now running in the wild planning for her own family, hopefully somewhere away from bird feeders and busy roads.