… sometimes you don’t.”

All day long, I’ve had that jingle from the 70s commercial for “Mounds” and “Almond Joy” candy bars playing in my head.

It could be, because I walked out to the garage this morning and the porch steps were covered in brown splotches. It was still a little gray and murky looking out, and, at first glance, I wasn’t sure what these brown tidbits were.

So, I scurried over to the bottom step to take a look. There were tiny pieces of mud plastered on each porch step and the porch itself.  Well, what the …?  It did not take me long to figure out that some squirrels couldn’t wait to dig into their Winter cache of nuts , and, decided to go for it now.  The trouble was, memory didn’t serve them well, and, they couldn’t remember where they stashed ‘em.  So, the culprits, with their paws digging furiously through the wet mulch, unearthed their peanuts alright, but made a big messy production out of it at the same time.

Muttering under my breath, I had to take a stiff piece of cardboard to scrape up the mess, because the old corn broom didn’t have enough oomph in it to drag the pieces, which adhered to the cement, like gum on a shoe, back into the garden where they belonged.

So, that little unexpected chore accomplished, off I went on my way, and, as I walked down Emmons, I could see what mischief their squirrels had been up to since I last happened by on Saturday morning. I took the picture of this beautiful harvest display last week on the day after it was set up.  I figured, I’d better seize the photo op then, as this trio of black squirrels were already making themselves right at home, clambering up the corn stalks and scrambling around the big, waxy gourds, as you can see more closely in the inset.

Likewise, in the not-so-elaborate Halloween displays, the pesky squirrels have already chewed the cutout faces on the many jack-o-lanterns on the Boulevard, and in the other neighborhoods as well. Those critters are bold and brazen, and without scruples it seems, but, we nature lovers, will watch one stop and beg in front of us, and we smile, get a warm-and-fuzzy feeling, then proceed to ply them with treats.  Humans are a fickle lot, are we not?

Happy November all … on a day which feels more like the first of the “ber months” … September.