Predator

My squirrel friend has a shorter tail this evening. He, or maybe it's a she, I can't tell, was pillaging our compost bucket on our screened porch with a buddy this morning. I'm not sure why my husband thought having an open bucket of compost on our screened porch was a good idea. Last year we kept one there as a holding spot before bringing it all out to our compost pile. In the winter it's hard to be motivated to bring the compost to the pile. Cold, snow, ice. Lots of good excuses. That worked until a variety of squirrels and mice found the bucket after tearing holes in the screens. We put a lid on on. They ate through the lid. We resumed our daily pilgrimages to the pile.

So why was an open bucket there again? He says he thought he was getting away with it. But this morning there were two red squirrels feasting. Then in another inexplicable decision, my sometimes not-so-good-at-thinking-things-through husband let our cat, Pip, out onto the porch. He says he thought Pip would just chase them out. But what happened looked a lot more like a cage match between predator and prey.

Their hole-in-the-screen entrance to our porch is not a high-speed escape route. They were trapped. Panicked, one climbed the screens and cowered ten feet off the ground while the other dashed madly about. Pip is a hunter through and through. I've known he's an outdoor cat in his truest nature. He's no lie around and get fat indoor lap cat. And he demonstrated that killer instinct today.

The frenzied running of the red squirrel stopped when he wedged his head between a post and the wall of the house, desperately trying to squeeze through. Most of his body didn't fit. That's where Pip caught up with him. By this time I was urging my husband to go out and stop this execution.

Let me be clear, I understand the predator prey relationship. Cats kill and eat squirrels. But this was not a fair fight - the prey were effectively caged and a predator was introduced to that cage. If this battle had been waged in the open yard, in nature, I would not have interfered. I would have looked away.

My dear husband recognized the seriousness of my demand and went out and grabbed Pip. As he carried the adrenaline crazed cat back into the house a large pile of fur hung from Pip's mouth. Mr. Squirrel was alive, but with a much shorter tail.

Within minutes the squirrels were back in the compost bucket. Think about that. Any person I know surviving a close encounter with death would be sitting back panting, calling friends and families to describe the "I almost died!" experience, re-living the story again and again. The story would take on mythic, epic proportions in that person's life. But a squirrel? After the imminent danger had passed, the predator gone, the squirrel resumed foraging.

I think there is someplace between what humans do and what squirrels do that makes sense. Reflect on the experience, see what can be learned from it, and then move on. No need to keep oneself re-living the terror, defining life as before and after. Acknowledge it was a close call, take what you can from it, enjoy life even more. I'll let you know when I can actually accomplish this idea...

But the story doesn't end there. We still had two squirrels rummaging through our compost in our screened porch. In a sensible move, my husband grabbed a broom and shooed them out of the bucket, then moved the bucket off the porch. He propped open the door. Then, for another unknown-to-me reason, he decided that they needed to leave now. He proceeded to chase them about with the broom until they ran out the door. Wouldn't they have left on their own in a few minutes to find the bucket?