Till now Dave and I have always left our pumpkins intact, placing them strategically outside our home, in true suburban fashion. Now that we have a nino, however, we decided it was time to start carving them. We covered the kitchen table in newspaper, plopped Ajax down between us, and set to work. We tried to get Ajax involved, but when we showed him how to scoop out the pumpkin innards he looked at us like we were crazy and wouldn’t touch a single seed. He was quite content to watch us and held his baby pumpkin that he had picked out.
I was pretty impressed with our carvings and placed them outside along with Ajax’s little pumpkin. In a matter of an hour squirrels had already started eating them and had run away with the littlest pumpkin. Darn city squirrels.
We actually have a very aggressive brown and tan squirrel that lives in the maple tree next to our back porch. This thing terrifies me. He has cornered me and forced me back into the house on more than one occasion. This past Sunday I had Ajax in my arms and we were leaving to run up to the grocery store. We stepped out onto the porch and that squirrel was standing next to the tree, about six feet from the house. As soon as he saw us, he stood up on his back legs, wiggled his nose, flicked his tail, and then came toward us. Ajax kept saying, kitty kitty, but I tried to use my purse to shoo it away. The darn thing thought I was trying to feed it and came right up onto the steps of the porch! I backed up into the door and started screaming for Dave, while trying to fumble with the handle. I couldn’t get the door open, so I jumped off the side of the porch toward my car and made a mad dash. In the meantime, Ajax kept calling the thing, kitty kitty. Dave came out way to late to save us, and I believe I threatened to shoot the squirrel. Our neighbors think we’re crazy.
