A Squirrel Totem

or momentous squirrel reflections…

July, 2024

At the beginning of July, I’d been hearing strange sounds from our woodstove. I have my AC units on during these humid days, not the stove.

Long story short—or maybe not, do you know me?

A squirrel, one of the 4 juveniles born this season—you can tell them from the mom by their size. They are smaller, cuter, but much more delinquent—They’ve been turning over my outside potted plants; digging up all the sunflowers I planted; trying to break into my home through the attic vent on the gable end of the house; tearing down one of my favorite wind chimes just for the fun of it… AND NOW, one of them has found its way into our metal chimney pipe from the roof. Maybe it was playing chase with his sibling, and fell down fourteen feet straight into the baffle part of our firebox.  🤦🏻‍♀️

It had to have been in there for at the least three days.  My husband kept saying it was a squirrel that was coming down his shutter outside his bedroom window that was making the noise.  I don’t think he hears what I hear.  Besides, his bedroom is in the front of the house, (because snoring), mine is toward the rear near an adjacent room from where the wood-stove resides. today, I found the source and had him come listen.

OK, short of taking apart the pipe inside the house, (and even if we do…) does anyone have a viable solution to getting this juvenile out?  It is stuck in the baffle area.  He can’t go up and he can’t get into the fire Box.  Damn thing is breaking my heart with his occasional plaintive cries. (Hold that thought!) ☝🏻

I put a bulletin out over FaceBook for help:

“Our woodstove is an old ‘Resolute’, any “helpful” suggestions would be appreciated.” I wrote, and posted pictures.

The top lid and front of the woodstove is open, but he is in the baffle part.

You can see the grey shine of his tail through the hole.

The baffle is open and is that dark area just above where the square hole is.

One person said to throw a rope down to it so it can climb out.  Brilliant! 💡

That next morning, Neil was getting ready to set up staging so that he could safely get onto the roof, take off the “top-hat” part of the pipe and lower down a rope.

I went out when I saw him put one of the stages of scaffolding on two of the screw jacks. I asked if he needed help.  (I always ask.  Usually he just grunts and says he’s got it.)  But this time he said, “Come hold this in case the wind catches it.”

Wind? It’s been hot and humid for what seems like weeks, not a breeze to be had!

While I was holding it, I was near one of the 4x4 wooden posts that holds up our shade cloth on the back of the house which makes up my summer veranda.  As I mentioned earlier, one of my wind chimes had been torn down by one of the juvenile delinquent squirrels, so I’d  fixed it and re-hung it, and was standing there inspecting it for more teeth marks.  I had also painted it with “Franks Red Hot Original Sauce” in case they wanted to chew on it again.

“What are you doing over there!” Neil demanded, “come over here and help me!”

He was trying to put the second heavy piece of staging onto the second set of screw jacks.

I said, “What if this one gets caught by a breeze?”

“OH COME ON!!!” He yelled. “THIS IS F*CKN HEAVY!”

I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing but complied with his demand.  He rarely drops the “F-bomb”.

“Ya, you always do that—laugh—when I’m in a situation!”

“But you told me to hold onto that other one…” I said trying to stifle myself.

“DON’T EVEN!!” He shot back.

Our fights are usually short lived, however I was starting to feel like the Squirrel was not really the problem, but actually an indicator of our whole relationship.

After that little outburst task, I saw he could handle the cross-bracing and rest of the staging on his own. I quickly exited the humidity back into the air conditioned house.  I vacillate between being cold and hot. I will go outside for a bit to warm up before going back inside.  Neil doesn’t seem to mind. His body perspires freely, not me, my ‘sweat-er’ is broken.  I run more on the cold side.

Once he got the top hat off the chimney, he lowered down a length of rope and tied off the other end to a rung on the scaffold.  We speculated on how long it would take the squirrel to get out.

I opened the front and top of the fire box, and saw that he was still trapped in the baffle area. I could see him through a hole that seemed to have developed. (See pictures above). I wondered if he’d chewed through the old cast iron or was it just rusting?  I had not seen that hole or the two smaller ones below it before.  When Neil came in I told him what I saw.  I asked had he seen them last winter.  Because I hadn’t and I feed the wood stove as much as he does.  Neil has a tendency to gas-light me when it comes to things he can’t give me a definitive answer on.  Instead of just saying “I don’t know”.  He has to have an answer for everything and it often turns into a fifteen to twenty minute lecture on the means and composition of metal; the chewing ways of squirrels; why his phone app says its going to rain when mine says it won’t… etc. Quite maddening actually.

Later I tried to approach him on the subject of everything we go thru, the arguments, hurt feelings, etc., not being about the squirrel at all, but more a barometer of our relationship over the years.  He cut me off with, “I will not be equated to a squirrel!”

“You’re just not ‘getting it.” I said.

“No I’m not!” he said and that was the end of the conversation.

Over the 26 years of our being together, I’ve learned to pick my battles.  It’s times like these I turn away and go take care of me.

I’m grateful I have returned to going to 12-Step meetings to spend an hour four to five days a week, to be around like minded people who “get me”.  Without this program of recovery, I probably would have divorced him after year seven into our marriage. (What waaaas I thinking getting married again after number three?). Fortunately I have tools in my Spiritual bag to get me turned around in my thinking.  We don’t have a terrible relationship together, we just have what works for us—plus I spend a lot of time in my garden.  When I remember that if I’m not happy in any given moment, it doesn’t have so much to do with him, but in me and my perspective, and I can shift it at a moments notice. (It’s probably why my garden thrives), and It’s why I laugh. 😂 I’ve tried to explain to him,  “it’s not about you, but about me”. Some days he gets it. On others—not so much. Fortunately we both ascribe to one of the tenets in the book, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and that one is:“Don’t take anything personally.”

In the meantime Neil vacuumed out the soot and ash where the squirrel wasn’t and it actually climbed up a little higher in the stove pipe to get away from the nozzle and noise.  It was then I was able to totally close off the baffle now that he wasn’t in it!  Well, that was a squirrel moment in the right direction!  Now he’s on the upside of it and will hopefully be able to go up the rope if we leave him alone for the rest of the day…

The scaffolding and you can make out the little wind chime up near the right.

Neil taking off the top hat section to be able to lower down the rope.

Sunday July 7, 2024

Another squirrelly day… Part 2, day four and a half.

(Well, the squirrel wasn’t “getting it” either.—see aforementioned paragraph about gardening).

So the life line rope down the chimney was a failure. Either the squirrel—was too weak to go up it, or it was just not adept in the rules of ropes for escape. (I’m being too kind with that description! I even sent it mental pictures of climbing up.) How many times have you seen squirrels tightrope walk across a live wire over a four lane intersection to get to the other side of the road?

Neil pulls out the rope. No squirrel holding on to the other end.  No surprise there.

During breakfast we commiserated on what our next strategy should be.

I even called our local Tractor Supply to learn they did have some ‘have-a-heart’ traps in stock.  But I didn’t want to pay that much. It would be our last resort, besides, I didn’t think it would fit in the firebox.

I had even tried talking nice to it with some AA slogans: “Surrender and you’ll be free”; “Let Go And Let God!”; “Turn it Over”…

Then I got a lightbulb moment to maybe mellow it out.

I just happened to have some old dried cannabis fan leaves left over from when I grew some “Weeds” on my property in 2019. For medicinal purposes only mind you.  As an herbalist and massage therapist, I had used them in salve making for my clients.

Opening the front of the fire box I put in a small dish with some of the leaves and try to light them. They barely smolder and quickly go out. Very little smoke.  I get a bright idea to cover some white sage with the cannabis and that worked and also gave me a branding idea: ‘Smudge and Stoned’!  This concoction stays lit and smolders lightly. I close up the stove.

An hour later, I peek in thru the top and saw “Soot” (yes, I named him), resting, “sleeping” on the closed baffle.  I quietly put on my doubled up garden gauntlets and like a praying mantis patiently awaiting its prey, I aim for it’s haunches, but he was quick and I snatched hold of its’ tail instead.

Now just this morning I had a friend tell me she had a similar situation quite awhile back, but the lower portion of her squirrel’s tail disconnected from the rest of its body. “It’s a defense mechanism.” she said.

Remembering her words, I tried working my way up further on the tail like pulling a rope and trying to grab a hind foot or two… Did I say this squirrel may have been too weak!? 😳

I was pulling, and pulling and I don’t know what this thing was holding onto, but it was stronger than a demon and I could have sworn I heard it cursing me in a deep voice rivaling that of *“The Exorcist”.

Neil is just wide eyed, mouth-gaped watching this tug o’ war the whole time.  It’s ok, Neil, I got this, I got thi…

Damn!

This squirrel too sacrificed a good portion of its tail and sling-shotted back up into the pipe a foot or more out of reach as I almost fell backward on my butt! I don’t got this!  Geez Gail, careful not to break the other hip!

**Now what ‘Boris’?! Maybe I should have named the squirrel “Rocky”.

Neil walks out to the garden-shed and gets the chimney cleaner-reamer-brush thingie, and goes back up the scaffolding to the roof. The ‘Sweeper’ takes up all the space in the 6’’ part of the stove pipe.  It’s what it’s made for. He was going to clean the chimney AFTER the squirrel was gone, but desperate measures and all…

From below, I hear the chimney brush scrape and ease down slowly as far as it could.  “Soot’s” got no place to go but down. (Pun intended). The scraping stopped just barely below where the damn rodent was always just outta my reach.

I’ve stopped feeling sorry for it by now! And just want it outta my home! I’m sure the drama and trauma on his part is mutual—“get me away from this crazy hooman! Nooo! My tail!”

I cautiously open the top lid, and can see a lot more debris and ash on the baffle, but don’t see the critter, yet we can hear him cursing us in squirrel language with much gnashing and chittering.

Neil asks if he’d like me to have him vacuum out the ash and stuff first before I reach in again. “OK.”

He hooks up the hoses and attachments with the thin nozzle for getting into tight places and lifts the cast iron lid just a couple inches.  Then he turns on the shop-vac…

Within two seconds, the varmint launches out of a narrow gap to the right of the vacuum hose like a fire-works rocket—its feet not even touching the floor and trailing soot and ash behind and around him like “Pig Pen” from the Charlie Brown comics series way back in the day!  AARGH!

Before Neil barely has time to recover and turn off the machine, I’m after the little ash demon that has now rocketed into my art studio and I’m yelling for Neil to open the back door!!

The rodent is up on tables; climbing curtains; knocking over my art supplies and trying to hide between boxes and table legs.  We are both hyper focused and the first thing I grab with any reach is my camera tripod. I close it into a tight, three legged pole and am swishing it behind the rodent to get him off the curtains, out of the small studio and out the back door.

It worked. Neil stood by with some spare window screens I use for drying herbs, and corrals it toward the wide open door where all the light and humidity is now coming in from!

***“Go to the light Carol Anne, Go to the light!”

SUCCESS!!!

PS…

It has now been some time and we’ve not seen hide nor tailless hair of that squirrel. Nor much of any other squirrels either for that matter.  I think word got out to avoid the crazy human monsters that live in the house.

Will a squirrel grow back it’s tail?  I’ve heard conflicting stories.

Unlike a lizard some say it doesn’t.  Other camps have said it will.  I wonder if his siblings and friends call him ‘Stub’?

And no, I did not bury the tail. (Don’t judge.) I did give it an unceremonious toss into the compost pile however, hoping some bird will line its nest with parts of it—and natures cycle continues.

*The Exorcist—Horror film from 1973. (I’d read the book first before I saw the movie.) Creepy! I should ask my Catholic priest Uncle if he’d ever had to perform an exorcism. But I digress.

** “Now what Boris?” A mashup between Boris and Bullwinkle from the Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, a cartoon show about a flying squirrel and his moose partner. (1959)—I’m really dating myself here!

*** The reference “Go to the Light Carol Ann” was taken from an old 1982 horror / fantasy film, Poltergeist.