Backlash II: More Tales Told by Hunters, Fishermen and Other Damned Liars. Galen Winter
may be so, but it was also on July 4th that I caught a 26 inch Brown Trout on the Peshtigo River. They said the Declaration of Independence was more important. Imagine! We never got to see the answer on the card because I ripped it up and threw it away.
Relations in the neighborhood stayed strained for a few days and then the three of them got together and finally admitted they were wrong and I was right. We’re friendly again, but I don’t think we’ll play Trivial Pursuit any more.
Man has learned to live with The Bomb, Global Warming, Global Cooling, the Black Plague, Acid Rain, Asbestos Insulation, Unruly Wives and liberals. In spite of the threatening presence of those terrible catastrophes, he has learned to cope. He is able to lead a reasonably serene and pleasant existence - but only if his cabin is not occupied by pine squirrels.
Henry Robinson is a case in point. Henry supported all pseudo-environmentalist and Animal Rights organizations. He believed all of the world’s problems were directly or indirectly caused by gun ownership and could be solved if every firearm was confiscated and all gun owners were sent to prison for life - without either trial or possibility of parole.
Henry owned a cabin situated deep in the woods of Vilas County. Until the snows and springtime mud made it impossible to negotiate the two rut road leading to it, Henry would spend nearly every weekend in his hideaway, searching for morels, honey mushrooms and other edible fungi, putting out food for the birds and otherwise communing with nature.
In April, as soon as the weather and temperature allowed an artfully driven 4-wheel drive vehicle to successfully fight its way to his cabin, Henry Robinson would leave the city and travel north to open his cabin and prepare for the coming season’s beautiful experiences with the flora and fauna of the wild woods. It was one of his rites of spring.
Last year, when he made his first visit to the cabin, he opened the door, saw the condition of its interior and was aghast. What he saw brought him to a new and more complete understanding of the word “mess”. Pots and pans were scattered in the kitchen area. Paper toweling had been shredded. Even the snow shoes decorating his wall had been knocked down and the webbing destroyed.
Upon seeing this and other outrages, at first Henry thought the Dark Age Vikings or the more modern Clockwork Orange gang had appeared and sacked the place. Then he saw a pine squirrel scurry through the hole it had chewed in the ceiling and up into the safety of the attic.
Further investigation showed a second hole, slightly larger than a silver dollar, had been gnawed through the outer wall of the cabin. Henry knew what had happened. After he had closed the cabin in November, driven by the cold, a pine squirrel, one of Mother Nature’s woodsy creatures, had entered his building. Mother Nature’s woodsy creature chewed the hell out of Henry’s mattress in order to get enough material to build its own nest in the attic insulation.
The squirrel, unconcerned with snow or sleet or wind chill temperatures, wintered there in his snug attic sanctuary. From time to time it would rouse from it half-sleep hibernation, descend and chew the hell out of whatever had been left unchewed on the main floor of the cabin. Henry’s love and admiration for Mother Nature’s woodsy creatures took a backstep.
Many human beings know there are various powders and pastes that will terminally discourage ants, mosquitoes and black gnats. Even wood ticks present no problem to those people because they have the foresight to provide themselves with N-Diethyl- meta-toluamide laden sprays. They know mouse poison will take care of mice. They know rat poison will kill pine squirrels.
For many human beings who don’t like to use poison to discourage the uninvited pine squirrels from entering their cabins, there is an obvious solution. Get a gun and shoot the destructive little (deleted). In Henry Robinson’s case, the question was: How do you get rid of pine squirrels if you don’t like to use poisons and believe guns are nasty?
Henry Robinson was a proud member of all Animal Rights groups. The thought of imposing capital punishment on the offending squirrel never occurred to him. He opened two cans of beans, cleaned the covers and nailed them over the holes in the walls. He went home believing he had humanely evicted his non-rent paying animal guests.
During the week an awful thought occurred to him. By nailing can covers over the holes, he may have trapped the squirrel inside his cabin. Would it be unable to get out? Would the creature die inside the cabin and smell up the place? He bought a wire mesh box trap.
On his next trip north, he was relieved to see new holes drilled next to the ones he had already patched with the tin can covers. He was not relieved to see the hole in the package of flour and the wide distribution of its contents. He was not relieved to see what the pine squirrel had done to his supply of toilet paper.
Remembering squirrels are often seen on bird feeders, Henry concluded they must like seeds. He baited his box trap with the sunflower seeds he stuck into a generous glob of peanut butter. Then he carefully pushed the device into the attic and waited. The next morning the desire result had been obtained. The trap contained a squirrel. The squirrel had a bobbed tail, probably shot off, Henry thought, by some terrible hunter.
As he drove to release the squirrel at a place far distant from his cabin, Henry experienced a shock of recognition. He was surprised to recognize he no longer considered the pine squirrel to be one of his furry friends. He considered it to be a destructive beast that, without provocation, had attacked and vandalized his cabin. He couldn’t disguise his sense of elation at having been able to trap it.
Henry turned the squirrel loose in a stand of white pine ten miles away. He returned to his cabin, nailed up more tin can covers and spent a day cleaning the mess in his cabin. On the following weekend, Henry returned to find more holes gnawed through his outer wall and inner ceiling. He also found another mess inside his building. He again set the box trap and again caught the bob tailed squirrel. Again he released it at another distant place and again returned to again clean up the squirrel’s mess.
During the following weeks, the catch and release scenario was repeated and it became obvious. The bob-tailed squirrel considered itself to be the owner of the cabin. Henry still tried to get rid of it in what he called a “humane” fashion. He put a plate of candy in the attic, hoping the animal would eat it, develop tooth decay and be unable to chew through his cabin walls. He fed it dog food and called it “Rover” in a desperate attempt to con it into thinking it was a dog and get it to play with Bruno, the neighbor’s vicious Pit Bull. Nothing worked.
The pine squirrel stayed in the attic and became more and more gnawingly abusive. Henry had nightmares. He dreamed he was trapped in a surrealistic version of Poe’s The Raven. It was a pine squirrel perched above his chamber door. In answer to Henry’s demand that it leave his cabin, the animal always answered: “Nevermore.”
Henry became more and more agitated. It didn’t help when his insurance agent told him his policy covered vandalism only if was occasioned by human beings. Destruction by pine squirrels was considered to be an “Act of God.” Henry blew up. He cancelled the insurance and resigned from the church.
Henry Robinson learned to cope and now leads a peaceful and serene life. The letters of resignation he sent to the Animal Rights groups can only be described as containing some very strong language. “Destructive little S--- of a B-----” was one of the milder phrases. Henry is now a member of the National Rifle Association. He owns shotguns, rifles, pistols and revolvers. He is a good shot.
The bob-tailed squirrel has gone to his reward.
Pine squirrels no longer bother Henry’s cabin. His property is the black hole of squirreldom. If a pine squirrel has the temerity to venture close to Henry’s domain, it is sucked into an explosive vortex and disappears forever. Mother pine squirrels instruct their young to give Henry Robinson’s cabin a wide berth.
It is the common practice