Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You?

I think the squirrels in So. Cal. have a particularly good life with lovely mild weather and lots of produce growing year round. This time of year, a persimmons tree in the yard behind us always produces a ton of fruit. All day long we see squirrels making off with the fruit and I would be shocked if the tree owners get any of it.

The kids have named our local squirrel Bad Boy. There is certainly more than one squirrel, but they refer to them all as Bad Boy, and speak as if one squirrel were responsible for all the infractions.  Meet our villain:

We find half eaten fruit discarded in the driveway, a pile of chewed up peel on the back steps, rotting fruit splatted on the front bricks. The funniest lately has been finding their stash; persimmons have turned up all over the yard, in the potted plants, stuffed down in vines by the mailbox, sitting on the dryer, even in the kids bike helmets! One morning last week poor Tim got a good shock when he started watering the garden. Bad Boy had been jamming a persimmons under the rosemary bush and when the hose started spraying the startled squirrel came tearing out of the garden and ran right by Tim's foot.

The latest infraction involved Porter's jack-o-lantern. Bad Boy decided to make a snack of it and chewed off a whole bunch of the face! Porter was so ticked off and almost in tears over it.

Matilda also speaks of Goodie, who is Bad Boy's cousin. She has babies who are all very friendly and good.  Supposedly,  they will peak their heads out to wave hello to Matilda, but I have yet to meet her.