Our squirrels have been in the wars over the last few weeks, and it’s making me sad. The cold makes all kinds of problems aside from it just being painfully cold, and I’m currently feeding several individuals with injuries made all the more unpleasant thanks to the temperatures, which have been hovering too often around zero or lower. UGH.

We moved last summer a block and a half north of our old house, and this current house has a perfect squirrel feeding perch outside one of our kitchen windows. I had noticed birds and squirrels using it as part of this yard’s wildlife interstate system, so I took out the screen and can now just set food out for them.

I make what I call “squirrel granola” whenever it’s really cold and the birds like it too. I save up ends of good cereals, bags of seeds and nuts and oats, dried fruits and some fresh fruits and veg which I mix together with peanut butter or almond butter and set it out in crumbles for them to find. They can’t be bothered by our dog and neighborhood cats on this perch, so it’s working well and they’ve been eating well over the last few weeks.

We are homeschooling our daughter this year, and she spends a lot of time watching the squirrels and has named a few of them. Chompers is the big handsome boy who has evaded injury thus far. Cookie isn’t so lucky and has a hurt foot and nose. Lovey is a little female, very spry and incredibly athletic- she can jump about 4 feet holding whole slices of apple in her mouth. I saw her do it with a good size pancake once (don’t worry- it was a whole grain pancake with no sugar). If she were a human, she’d be a tightrope walker.

I like that my daughter notices that these squirrels have differences and are recognizable as individuals, and my only concern is that we’ll find one of the beloved named ones on the road over the summer, squished flat.

But that’s life, isn’t it?

A friend of mine is going through a tough loss right now. Another is being faced with one. In my own family, loss hasn’t been rare, and has been even less so since the pandemic began. More currently, I have a long-time follower in Russia who is facing an inability to work; she’s an artisan who sells things online, which will be nearly impossible now. She knows this is small compared to the losses of people in Ukraine at the moment. All most of us can do is hope that we aren’t the squirrel, squashed flat on the road while doing our best to look out for one another.