Formerly Known as Squirrel

Golden the White Dog decided to bring a present into the house yesterday morning, but Amy wasn't grateful to see a small, dead squirrel deposited on the kitchen floor, and there was a bit of hysteria (for which I wasn't home, unfortunately), follow by a great deal of Lysol, and the squirrel ended up in a box on the back porch waiting for The Man of The House to do What Men Do, which turns out to be putting dead squirrels somewhere other than the house, yard or porch.

However, some of us care about these things more than others. I had forgotten about squirrel duty when the boys and I got home from church, but the boys hadn't, and by the time I got the full update, they had moved the squirrel sarcophagus from the back porch to the front yard, and - I don't know what they used for implements - had "dug" a small, cavity in the ground, probably about three inches deep at its maximum point, and six inches across, which they identified as the grave for the squirrel. Apparently they intended to put it in the same place - hopefully not exactly the same place - where they had buried a small mouse some time ago, which was marked with a rock and two sticks by Ian, our Chief of Ceremonies and Symbols. This was the spot that Ian identified as follows, in proposing it for the squirrel: "I do have a rock where I once buried a mouse, and two sticks."

Unfortunately, Amy came home from church in her own car around that time, and she seemed to be blaming me that the boys had elected to make funerary preparations for a small, furry creature. She was all the more upset, because the proposed gravesite is well within the "Green Zone" bounded by the canine electric fence. So Daddy and former-squirrel took a little ride.

I reassured the boys - truthfully, it turns out - that the squirrel was buried on the same hill out in Nature where I buried a couple of guinea pigs back when we were renting the farm-house, and didn't have any permanent pet cemetery plots of our own. Ian seemed satisfied with this news.

But what was most touching about the whole thing was Daniel's reaction: "Daddy, I wanted to go see the squirrel. TOO BAD IT'S DEAD!!! Daddy, next time, can we catch a squirrel for a pet?"

Amy loves pets, so I think we'll probably do this for her sometime when I'm home alone with the boys.

Of course, being Daniel, right after he mentioned being sorry that the squirrel was dead, he also mentioned a an interest in probing the carcass "to see how tough he is." I think the reasoning is that we would like a live, happy pet squirrel, but if it happens to be dead, there's no reason to turn down an educational opportunity. I think Amy would feel the same way.

(May 8, 2011)