In addition to the five cats she brought with her to Georgia, Nanny also began feeding the birds and the squirrels. We live on an acre and a half and it’s wooded, so there are a lot of birds and squirrels to feed. (We also have a creek, I’m thankful there are no fish in it or she’d feed those too). She is convinced that before she moved here, no one in the state of Georgia ever fed the birds or squirrels, and they were all starving before she got here.

On Tuesdays she becomes edgy to go to Target. This is partly became this is when the shipment of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes in — she has an ongoing feud with a gentleman who also prefers Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, and she has to beat him to the ice cream or he’ll take it all. (She always leaves him a pint, because she understands his pain.)  But it is also because we must never, ever be out of peanuts or bird food, and Target sells both. (I simply cannot be talked into a run to PetsMart more than once a month, but I am always up for a run to Target.)

This is all very well and good, because I love seeing the cardinals at our back deck where the bird feeder hangs and listening to the squirrels causing a ruckus in the backyard, where their feeder is a little distance from the house. My husband, however, is convinced that “wildlife” stands for Will Infiltrate Local Domiciles Loudly If Fed Extensively. The squirrels frequently visit the back deck to eat from the bird feeder. He worries that if the squirrels get too used to us they will move into the attic. He bolsters his argument with the fact that there was a squirrel trap in the attic when we moved in; I say this disproves his theory because, well, they were already in the attic before anyone started feeding them. One day he came downstairs and summoned everyone around the dining room table. On it he laid a printout and instructed us all to read it. I glanced at it and rolled my eyes — it was an article about squirrels chewing through the electrical wiring and setting your house on fire.  Nanny, however, read it very carefully. Every single word.

The next morning, bright and early, I woke up. Something was different. There was an awful lot of noise on the back deck, right under my window. It sounded like a party. A loud, chattery party. The kind of party where people throw furniture. Something shattered, and I threw on my robe and ran downstairs and out onto the deck. Squirrels scattered everywhere.

There on the patio table, directly outside the back door, was a squirrel house. It had four walls and a little roof and (brace yourself) a welcome mat. It actually said “Welcome” on it. It was filled with peanuts and corn, and half-eaten peanuts and corn were scattered all around it. There was a line of corn sprinkled along the deck railing. The squirrels had also gotten into some potted plants next to the table, and they had broken one of the pots. The bird feeder, which usually hung from the deck railing, was on the ground below. Clearly the furry-tailed rats had been having a hell of a time before I came out.

I got rid of the evidence in a hurry and then questioned the culprit.

“I thought if I put lots of squirrel food out on the deck, they wouldn’t bother the bird feeder.” She looked a little sheepish, but not overly so. She was a first-grade teacher for 30 years, there’s a little acting involved with that particular profession.

To this day I am not sure I believe her, since the line of corn on the deck railing led directly to the bird feeder. Since I have found that it is pointless to confuse the situation with logic, we bought a four-foot hanger that swings away from the deck and suspends the bird feeder over the yard. The squirrels tried for a while to shimmy down it, and a couple fell, but now they mostly stick to their feeder in the back yard. Stay tuned for Part II, in which Nanny explains exactly WHY the squirrels stick to the back yard.

(Image courtesy of Collectionsetc.com)