By Brian Lee
For the past couple months I’ve wakened just about every morning at dawn to a series of sounds outside my window:
Tock... pfffft... tock-tock... whump.
Though not always the same, the series would repeat every five seconds or so until I got up and poured a cup of coffee. Outside sit half a dozen cone-laden fir trees that seem to be the exclusive domain of a caffeinated squirrel. I noticed the little guy last spring while, for four days, he methodically stripped every blossom from my fluffy white cherry tree. Even then, I could tell there was something exceptional about him.
I didn’t notice the little ball of nerves for a month or so after he deflowered my tree. But one morning, I caught a brown blur scampering across the driveway and shooting up one of the small trees bordering the road. Before long he’d dart back with a pine cone almost as big as he is. Each time he crossed the open kill zone of the driveway, he paused to weigh his odds before momentarily disappearing into the safety of the salal.
It wasn’t long before he exhausted the cone supply across the driveway and moved on to the much larger firs outside my window. He’d stay in the tree for 20 minutes at a time and release one pine cone after another:
Tock... pfffft... tock... whump.
Tock... tock-tock... pffft... whump.
Occasionally the series would end in a metallic "tamp" — the sound of a resinous bomb landing on my girlfriend’s new car. I didn’t let on that it was the squirrel causing the damage — just "random drips." It didn’t matter — pretty soon my truck was in its place to chivalrously take the hits.
Tock... pfffft... tock... TAMP.
Tock... pfffft... pfffft... TAMP.
After a predictable amount of time, the pattern would stop while he worked the ground gathering his spoils. But not for long.
Pffft... tock-tock... whump.
I’m not usually the type to get sentimental about vermin but I didn’t once consider killing this guy. In another home I once had to euthanize a family of squirrels living in the soffits. After a winter of sleepless scratching and squirrel hijinx, I was happy to do it.
But this little guy had such focus, I started rooting for him. All summer long he was like an alarm clock hardwired to my conscience.
Tock... pfffft... tock... whump.
Pffft... tock-tock... whump.
Lately he seems to have throttled back a bit, giving me a chance to sleep in a bit. Now I picture him sprawled on a bed of shucked seeds watching Nutflix, licking the resin from another pine cone from his little rodent lips.
He’s probably happy and content but the satisfaction of his hard work is probably already starting to ebb as he obsesses about the tasty cherry blossoms of springs.
And the fascinating sounds made by pitch bombs landing on that black truck.
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