You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Bird Feeder.
Or is it the squirrel feeder?
I guess it depends how you gaze out your window.
It’s a lazy Saturday morning.
The sun is shining and the temperature is smiling, rising, trying to make me forget winter has ravaged me, victimized all of us.
I’m watching a squirrel run down a tree.
Run down a tree? How does the squirrel do it, I think to myself.
He runs down the tree, full speed, his head pointed at the ground. Isn’t he dizzy? Isn’t he afraid he’ll fall? Does he have special two-way claws, filled with glue and velcro that give him super traction?
I watch the squirrel suddenly stop. He knows what he wants.
He shuffles around the side of the tree to the feeder filled with bird seed.
Bird see? Squirrel seed? He doesn’t have time for adjectives.
It’s seed.
So upside down, like a furry astronaut in orbit, he shoves his little face into the opening.
“Look at that squirrel,” my friend says with great consternation.
“He’s eating all my bird seed.”
I can tell she hates that squirrel. I watch him filling his fuzzy little face. He is upside down, unaware that the laws of gravity and physics are being tested.
“How does he swallow upside down?” I say aloud.
“I just filled that bird feeder,” she laments.
I laugh. I can see why this would be disturbing.
“It depends how you look at it,” I say. “If you call it a bird feeder then that picture is all wrong.”
She looks at me curiously. “Yeah,”
“But if you call it a squirrel feeder then the picture is all right.”
She smiles. “I never thought about it like that,” she says bursting into laughter.
I laugh too. Life is all how you look at it.
Is the glass half full? Is the glass half empty? Or in this case, is that a squirrel feeder or a bird feeder?
In this case, it seems to be both.
The squirrel’s cheeks are full. He runs down the tree and leaps to the grass. He stops, right side up. Perhaps he is disoriented?
My dad feeds birds too. He has multiple feeders hanging around the house.
He has a hard line stance on squirrels.
BIRD FEEDERS! NOT SQUIRREL FEEDERS.
My dad would spend his mornings filling half a dozen bird feeders with special bird seed. He would risk life and limb standing on a 3 foot high step ladder precariously positioned on a slightly tilted hill.
He would strain to lift each heavy bird feeder and loop it onto the branch.
You could see families of scrub jays sitting in the trees over head, just waiting for him to finish so they could swoop down and gorge themselves on designer bird food.
My dad was a serious bird feeder. Bird feeders were for birds and birds only.
But squirrels have little brains and they can’t read well, so when they smell designer seed, they see opportunity.
My dad wasn’t going to look out the window and call his bird feeders squirrel feeders.
“This is high tech war,” he would exclaim.
And with that, he installs a number of squirrel repelling mechanisms.
“Come watch this,” he shouts with glee.
I stand at the window and watch as a California squirrel runs down a tree, sneaks out on a branch, and eye balls the bird seed feeder. The squirrel licks his little lips and sneaks down the wire onto the plastic bird feeder.
There is a plastic ledge perfect for a squirrel to rest on.
So the little squirrel sits on the ledge and prepares to steal his share of delectable seeds.
WHIRRRR!
The weight of the squirrel on the ledge starts a detrimental chain reaction if you are a squirrel.
A battery is activated that spins the platform rapidly like a squirrel blender on frappe. One minute the little squirrel is stealing seeds, the next minute he is hanging on for squirrel life.
I watch as the bottom half of the bird feeder spins like an 8 cylinder merry-go-round.
The squirrel is hanging on by 2 claws. G forces have his back end and legs stretched out like clothes on a line in a gale force wind.
He is a little squirrel astronaut in a zero g accelerator.
The squirrel holds on for one, two, maybe two revolutions.
Then physics takes over and the little squirrel gets catapulted into the yard.
My dad laughs the laugh of a bird feeder who has outwitted the mighty squirrel brain.
“Best money I ever spent” he once said.
I can’t imagine how a squirrel anti theft device could possibly be the best money an 80-year-old man ever spent, but that is how he feels.
I stare at the scrub jays that swoop down and land on the same mechanism that just launched the squirrel into the yard. The bird weighs next to nothing and the device does not activate.
The bird pecks away, unaware he is perched on a ticking time bomb for squirrels.
I see what my dad is talking about. The bird eating is boring. The squirrel eating is entertaining, like a 3 stooges episode with a bushy tail.
I watch as the squirrel at my friend’s house gorges himself on her high-priced bird seed.
“He’s eating all my seeds,” she says.
I watch as a woodpecker comes to the feeder.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” she exclaims.
The woodpecker is magnificent. It pecks at the seeds and enjoys a quick snack.
Suddenly the woodpecker flies away.
The thieving squirrel returns.
“OOOOH. That squirrel is back!”
It’s only a problem if you see it as a bird feeder, I think to myself.
If you view it as a squirrel lunch box, then this is a pretty good moment for man and beast alike.
Life’s crazy™