Living the Dream: Squirrel away for winter

I'm not sure if I have mentioned previously, but I am on a diet, no big thing, but I just want to trim down before Christmas. Anyway, things had been going so well, but on Saturday we travelled over to the Countryside Live Show in Harrogate.

When I say we, I mean Wendy, Naomi and myself. Almost immediately on arriving at the show ground I was faced with temptation, as there were so many wonderful sights and smells. As we made our way around the show, it only got steadily worse, but Wendy had planned ahead and had prepared healthy, but very boring treats, to nibble on, as we travelled the showground, severaI times over, but I didn’t succumb to the temptation until late in the day when we all had a roast pork sandwich with stuffing…oooh, it was good!

We had a fantastic day at the show and saw so many exciting and interesting things and I don’t just mean meeting the Yorkshire vets! Of all the things we saw that day, we probably shouldn’t be, but we were taken aback at the talent which we have here in Yorkshire. The extent which people go to, to express themselves through their talents is just fantastic.

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Isn’t it funny how your attitude can change towards wildlife, when your circumstances and surroundings change. Whilst living in suburbia, as beautiful as they might have been, I had no end of problems with squirrels reeking havoc and in particular, stripping the lining out of our new double garage roof. They used to drive me bananas. Oh, how things have changed.

As I walk through the oak tree pathway up to our top fields, I can almost certainly rely on a couple of squirrels running alongside me through the branches. Over the last few weeks they have been preparing for winter as they have been stashing away their tasty treats.

It’s funny because they’ve been burying things in so many places, they’re not overly bothered where they dig the holes, but they do have some favourites, like under the willow tree, along the banks of the ditch and slap bang in the middle of the house lawn! Good luck to them I say, they are in their element out here and it’s a joy to be able to have them living on the farm.

“Do you want to come shopping with me, I need to grab some ingredients?” Those were the words which were to commence another round of torture for me and I don’t mean shopping!

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Getting dragged around a supermarket was the easy bit, it was the resulting activity afterwards which would cause me all the problems. “What are you going to make?” There was no reply.

I left it a few minutes, thinking Wendy was concentrating and didn’t want her to lose her train of thought and then I repeated the question. “What are you going to make?” She responded, “Christmas cake.”

That’s when things went blurry and I knew that from soon after returning home, the place would turn into a hive of activity and would be smelling like heaven for hours after. I wouldn’t be able to escape from the temptation and besides, when the Christmas cake was complete, there’s no chance this little fella was getting a taste anyway!

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