Squirrel!

When you’ve got a big dog who can’t be let off the leash, sometimes you’ve got to stop what you’re doing and go for a walkie. And LB and I were just coming into the yard from the mid-day walkie when he saw something that needed chasing and started surging against the leash. If I’d seen it in time, I might have let him go.

By the time I saw it, the squirrel was under the Jeep and just deciding that the only available direction was up. It disappeared into the works.

I opened the engine hood and there it was. It gave me a disgusted look, went below, and met the marauding Little Bear. It came right back into the engine compartment and I lunged at it.

Briefly and for only the second time, I had a really good shot at the squirrel but it would have involved firing large caliber pistol bullets into the Jeep’s busy bits. Even in my rage at the bulletproof squirrel this seemed like a bad idea. So I waved my arms and said “Raar,” and it headed back down the transmission hump.

Where Little Bear, bless him, was getting seriously into the act. Clearly LB hadn’t figured into the squirrel’s plans because there was a great disturbance in the force followed, unfortunately, by one of those stand-offs where a terrified squirrel chitters and a frustrated dog barks. Meanwhile I stood off with a pistol in my hand and hate in my heart, hoping the squirrel tried to make a break for it.

During this phase, LB was literally tied to the Jeep…

…and he was doing his best, but we had reached stalemate.

So I decided that what we needed here was a Jeep ride. LB really didn’t want to come out from under lest his prey escape, but he’s easy to coax inside under any circumstances. I slammed it into 4-wheel and we took a bumpier than normal trip through the wash. Normally I’m solicitous of the very worn suspension, but in war sometimes you have to risk breaking things.

We got far out to the mud hills north of the big horseshoe in the wash, stopped, and hoped for a shot at a traumatized squirrel as it staggered away. I don’t know why I thought that was going to work.

Failing to catch a sight we bumped and bashed back to the Secret Lair. I threw open the hood, and…there was the squirrel.

It was wedged under the intake, looking much the worse for wear, rather like a kid who regretted having pressured his father into letting him take that ride on the big-people roller coaster. It faced away from me and didn’t at first respond to the opening of the hood. Then it looked behind it, sort of sighed, and squeezed back down the transmission.

LB was already under the Jeep and I expected a commotion, but this time there was no reaction at all. “Little Bear, he must be sitting on your back.” Nope. The squirrel had sussed out the squirrel-accessible places under the chassis, and LB was out of contention.

So I’m gonna call that encounter a draw. I did not succeed in killing the squirrel, but I did at least manage to temporarily make it hate life.