Last summer I was looking out the window of my office and noticed a squirrel sometimes disappearing into the storage side of the garage. (My husband Dennis remodeled our detached garage into 2/3s office space for himself and 1/3 storage. We covered most of the large garage door opening with plywood and put in an old door composed of 15 small panes of glass,.) At the time, our yard man Gerardo was gone for a week. A pane of glass in the lower right hand corner of the door is missing. Normally Gerardo leaned an old child’s gate up against the door and secured it with a sandbag left over from the flood to keep the door from blowing open. But he forgot to put the child gate and sandbag in place, and the squirrel discovered the open pane. I was afraid to cover the hole in case the squirrel was a mama with a nest of little ones inside.
When Gerardo came back, I told him about it. He checked the storage area. There was no nest, he said, but the squirrel had smelled out our pecan harvest. He had eaten a hole in one of the boxes of pecans and scattered empty pecan shells in the driveway. So when Gerardo left at the end of the day, he covered the door with the child’s gate.
But the squirrel found a little crawl space to squeeze through between the door and the gate. While I was working at my computer one afternoon, I noticed him running in and out, in and out of the storage area. After he made about 10 trips in 20 minutes, I decided enough was enough. I found a big plastic storage bin, moved it tightly against the door, and kept it in place with the heavy sandbag, propping the sandbag so that it completely blocked the open pane.
Pretty soon the squirrel came back. Saw that he couldn’t get in. Ran away. Came back. Checked again. Ran away, Whisked back. Leaped on top of the storage bin and the sandbag. Raised up on his hind legs and looked through one of the panes of glass. Jumped at the window. Jumped down. Ran round and round the child’s gate, which was now leaning against the wall between the two garage doors. Knocked over the child gate. Ran away. Ran back. Jumped back onto the bin and looked into the window. Ran back and forth in front of the garage. Found a nut. Ate it. Stood on hind legs to look at the door again. Turned around and dug in the rocks. Checked again. Ran completely around the garage. Tried to squeeze between the door and the storage bin. Leaped onto the storage bin again. Stood back on his hind legs and tried to see if there was another empty pane of glass. Jumped down. Jumped back. Ran away. Ran back.
Finally he stood on top of the sandbag, stretched his little paws up high until he grasped the bit of ledge along the top of the next higher pane of glass and then tried to climb the glass door. He couldn’t get any traction on the glass and fell back. Tried again. Ran back along the front of the garage, looking, looking. Ran off. Ran back. Tried to climb up the glass again. Ran away. He was one frustrated squirrel. He kept me entertained for about a half hour.
Dennis was gone at the time. When he came back, he cut a piece of plywood and fit it into the empty pane. The squirrel had to content himself with whatever store of pecans he had already collected. And with the fall, he probably found plenty of nuts on and under the almond and pecan trees.
***************
This summer he came back. Gerardo kept forgetting to shut the storage door, and from my office window I noticed the squirrel running in and out of the open door when Gerardo’s back was turned. If Gerardo DID remember to shut the storage door, and if Dennis’ office door was open for a little fresh air, the squirrel would run into Dennis’ office. Then Dennis would chase him out. He was one determined squirrel.
Dennis bought a humane small animal trap. The squirrel stole three pecans from the trap. In and out he whisked, without ever tripping the mechanism.
So Gerardo and Dennis trained themselves to keep the garage doors shut.
That made the squirrel frustrated. He would jump from a pile of stuff next to the storage door and balance on the door handle, then peer in the window pane and stretch up, teetering on the handle, trying to find a way in. I watched him through my office window. He kept me entertained for about a week.
Finally he figured it out. One day I saw him working with his little paws at the top of the plywood panel Dennis used to cover the empty lower right hand pane in the door. After a bit of effort, the squirrel managed to pull and bend the panel away from the top of the frame, then scoot himself into the crack. To get out, he climbed to the window pane above the plywood panel and used his feet to push out the panel. It’s flexible and it bent just enough to let him in and out without breaking the plywood piece or pushing it completely out. He jumped out with his cheeks stuffed.
After I watched him going in and out every 2-3 minutes, I emailed Dennis, who came out, chased him off and nailed the plywood piece into the door frame securely. Pretty soon he was back, pretty frustrated, gripping the bottom ledge of the window with his hind claws and biting at the door along the sides of the plywood panel. By the next day that goofy squirrel had just about eaten his way through the door. Dennis smeared the chewed places with a combination of oil and cayenne pepper, which kept him away for about a day. But the monsoon season started early, and rain washed the door. So after a day or two, he was back.
Don’t tell our grandchildren, but their grandfather went out and bought an air rifle and shot the squirrel.
