Nearly tame squirrel

[Guest guest]

This morning I put out the corn cob as usual. Before long, there are a squirrel on it. On the weekends I usually throw out a small handful of peanuts to big them a treat. Approaching the feeder, I noticed the squirrel was same one that had gotten so close a while back.

So, I put some peanuts in my hand and held it out. I got pretty close to the feeder and the squirrel leaned over and sniffed then came to to the ground. Once there, it tenatively came closer: a little hop, sit up and sniff, then another little hop. So I squatted down and held my hand just above the newly cut grass.

It came closer but still was uncertain, so I put wiggled my fingers so a couple of peanuts fell from my hand and I sidled back a foot or two. The squirrel kind of crawled forward and picked one up, inched back and ate it. The next one, it walked and sat in place to eat as it did the next. Once finished with those, it carefully came up and snatched a peanut from my hand, all of which were out on my fingers not the palm. It scooted back some and ate. The next time it sat just just beyond my fingers.

I let it take two more but by that time my legs were killing me, having been squatting ackwardly then for about 5 minutes or so. I dumped the rest of the peanuts in a pile at its feet, and stood up. The squirrel only ran as far as the bottom of the tree about 4 feet away and as soon as I turned, it was coming back to the pile of nuts. To my surprise, there were two more squirrels in the yard behind me, though much farther away than the other. One of them circle around about 10 feet out heading for the food while the other one took off across the yard.

No telling how much more tame that one is going to get. Just so long as it doesn't try to get in the house or lose its fear of the neighbor's cat.

That reminds me. Last winter my mother got a wreathe from these people that was made out of real pine needles and pine cones, which she hung on the front door. I was here at the computer one day and I saw something huge in the security camera, which is located in the transom over the front door. It was one of the squirrels. So I walk out in the hall and there it was up in the transom looking in the little windows checking the place out. It saw me but didn't act too worried. We looked at each other a bit then I went to the door. That made it jump down and run off. They came back several times to that wreathe and up into the transom before they figured out there was nothing in the wreathe to eat. I'm still sort of surprised they didn't try to make a nest up there.