When we first moved into our neighborhood 12 years ago, one of the things I loved most was how many trees the developers had planted. Honestly, I hadn't seen so many trees since living in Virginia. I couldn't wait for them to all get huge so we'd have lots of shade, leaves to play in in the fall, birds nests, squirrels... and there... that's where I went wrong. I remember how excited I was when the squirrels moved in... I knew our neighborhood was definitely growing up. I loved watching them run along our fenceline and having Maddy (our yellow Lab) go berserk not being able to catch them. I even bought a squirrel Christmas tree ornament the first year they made an appearance, just to commemorate the friendship.
Times have changed....
First of all, we have a steep little roof over our dining room area that runs right up and flush with Ally's window. Our furry-tailed friends (there are SEVERAL) love to stand and peer in at Ally through her window and watch her. They're even sort of brazen about it. That's all fine, but apparently Ally hears them running around all the time up there and we're sort of afraid they've made a home (nest) in our attic.
But here's where it all went awry. The other night a friend and neighbor called to warn me about leaving my car in the driveway because of a situation that had happened to them. One of her daughters has a Honda Accord that she parks outside. The other day it wouldn't start. They tried jumping it... nothing. They had someone come look at it and found that inside the engine many of the wires had been chewed to bits... guess where this is going? They had to have the car towed and all the wiring replaced. The next morning her husbands windshield wipers wouldn't work. Once again, the cheeky, little buggers had had a heyday under the hood. His car is brand new and it cost a fortune to have just the windshield wiring replaced. My favorite part of the conversation with my friend was at the end when she told me (in her words), "the little critters went at IT so aggressively last weekend, they must have had some major pent up, sexual addiction and saved it all for one big brouhaha. Get a room already... thank you VERY little."