Silly Squirrel.... Tricks are for kids.

We have this crazy squirrel in our backyard. My family laughs at me whenever I mention him. I don't think they believed me. I love watching him as I do dishes. He scales our neighbor's wooden fence upside down; jumps tree to tree and bounces around in our yard (kind of like those skunks in the old bugs bunny cartoons).
But what makes him amazing? His ability to do somersaults. He climbs up our compost pile and somersaults down, he does this several times. This squirrel is an animal gymnastic wonder... future Olympic material. However, he always stops by the time I get daughter #1 to the window.

If it wasn't for my neighbor, I think my husband would of had me in a therapist chair or on my way back to the 9-5 work world. Lucky for me, my neighbor at a dinner party told the story of our squirrel in the backyard. He too, saw the squirrel doing somersaults on numerous occasions.
His wife laughed as he told the story. I understood that laugh. Daughter #1's eyes grew bigger as she looked at me with one hand over her mouth and the other pointing at me.
"TOLD YOU!", I exclaimed.
At this point my neighbor turned to me and asked if I had seen this squirrel.
Of course I have!
He looked at his wife smugly and smile. She stopped laughing.

Well, that is... she stopped until I told another story about the squirrel (thats another post, another time).

It is moments like this that I miss my father. He would of believed me from the start. He would of even given my squirrel a name. Dad, himself, had a rabbit named Mr. Nibbles who frequently ate up his garden. Dad at times would be obsessed with finding ways to keep Mr. Nibbles away from his precious vegetables, kind of like "Old Man and the Sea" (oops edit - wrong classic...Moby Dick and Captain Ahab)but his story is "Nibbles". Every year, I heard about Mr. Nibbles from a small child up until last year. Last spring was the last time I heard about Mr. Nibbles before my father died in June. That summer, my father's garden lived on, cared for by my mother and the neighbors (and Mr. Nibbles). Hopefully, this spring, the garden will continue to exist and Mr. Nibbles haunts my mother as he did my father. That would be funny.

Please vote on a name in the right hand column.  Or better yet, make a suggestion!