.
She’s back.
.
.
And this time she brought reinforcements.
.
.
She was running to and fro, across our deck, up and over the roof.
.
.
Plotting her next invasion location.
.
.
But the worst part?
Look….
.
.
She’s trying to recruit the grey squirrels!
.
.
Because it looks like we’re going to need these again.
.
.
It’s true. I’m starting to feel like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.
.
.
Agree or disagree, it’s still funny.
.
.
Yes! That’s it exactly….
.
.
I fill those darned things three times a day, stop complaining.
.
.
No political comments necessary.
.
.
Wouldn’t it be great to always have an umbrella handy?
.
.
No more rooting through the nightmare that is your hall closet or under your lost french fry infested car seats.
.
.
Every time it rains?
.
.
You just flip your built in umbrella up over your head… and the problem is solved.
.
.
And damned if she doesn’t look like she just gave birth.
.
.
We’ve sealed up every hole we could find, but that won’t stop her.
.
.
She’ll just chew through another wall.
.
.
How can something so small can be so destructive?
.
.
Lord Dudley Mountcatten spotted her from the window and was very interested.
.
.
Which might be just the incentive I need to allow him to go outside.
😈
.
This month’s calendar squirrel is a duet.
.
.
And really, for all the aggravation our resident red bitch causes us …. I think a concert with rodent sized baby grand and vocal accompaniment is the least she can do.
.
.
More photos from January. This was actually our last sighting of the rodent who must not be named.
.
.
I’d like to think she’s gone to that large oak tree in the sky..
.
.
But with my luck she’s just recruiting interspecies mercenaries and planning her next attack.
.
.
Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of her…
.
.
.
In the continuing saga that is my kitchen calendar ( Bless you my loyal readers, the content here at River’s World is sometimes less than thought provoking ) we have now arrived at April.
.
.
The rodent featured this month seems to be knee deep in a pagan celebration of spring. But seeing that we live in Maine, where May can bring snow …. our resident red bitch from Hell is probably not celebrating in kind.
No, more than likely she’s gathering up dead grasses and leaves in anticipation of building a nest for her future demon offspring in our one of our eaves.
.
.
The battle continues.
.
.
After a nightmarish week of battling Direct TV customer service and their bots, an hour long phone conversation with “Susie” from Bangalore, an hour and a half long conversation with “Susie’s” supervisor “Jimmy” from New Delhi, one service call from a technician who said he was given the wrong work order, a second visit from a technician who said we didn’t need a separate dish on the barn roof after all, a 40 minute long conversation with “Elaine” from Mumbai in which I told her I wasn’t paying an extra $100 for something that should be free, and a third visit from a technician who finally hooked up a mini receiver in the man cave ….
Can you see it?
.
.
I hope not.
.
.
But it’s there.
.
.
An extremely long cable connecting the satellite dish on our house to the barn.
.
.
Because someone…who shall remain nameless but answers to ‘Hey Marine’…. just had to have a television with a full program line up with DVR capability in his man cave.
.
.
In Maine, lines don’t get buried until spring…. which means I’ll either trip over it and break my neck in the meantime, or the red squirrel bitch from Hell will chew through it when seeking revenge.
Good times.
.
Did I mention I had to spend another 35 minutes online with a chatbot when Direct TV charged me twice for the same service call and then added a $9 monthly protection plan to my bill that I didn’t approve? Ever since AT&T took them over it’s been a horror show.
😡
.
.
As I was cruising Amazon for a calendar the other day, I realized there was only one choice.
Oh, I could have picked one with barns. Lord knows we’ve spent enough time and money on ours.
Or I could have picked one with white tailed deer. But we have plenty of those in the backyard.
And I could have picked one about beer. But the man cave has one of those already.
So what did I choose?
.
.
Yes.
Not 12 months of red squirrels… but a full 18.
.
.
Seeing all the trouble she’s caused us in the past year?
It seemed highly appropriate.
.
.
Neither snow nor rain… nor frigid temperatures will stop the red squirrel from Hell.
.
.
She was scurrying over the roof and across the deck railing…
.
.
Trying to make her way to the seed buffet.
.
.
But this snow was light, fluffy and thick and every time she tried to walk across it?
.
.
She fell through.
.
.
And yes, I laughed my rapidly expanding, thank you Covid 19 ass off.
.
.
But she had the last laugh.
.
.
Because the bitch has learned to tunnel.
.
.
She tunneled for over an hour.
.
.
Back and forth.
.
.
Building an entire red squirrel subway line.
.
.
This doesn’t bode well for my dream of her dying of starvation over the winter.
.
.
Or the safety of our home’s foundation for that matter.
.
.
If I wake up next month with her sitting at the kitchen table nibbling my Krispy Kreme’s? Things are going to get real.
.
River's world..... 