In case we've never had this conversation, demon squirrels live a tree in my backyard.
For those who have not had the luxury of visiting my backyard, it is approximately fifteen feet from my back door and only about six feet beyond the borders of my deck. My land is all located to the side and front of my yard.
But I digress. Back to the squirrels.
A family of squirrels live in a pine tree, which is next an oak tree. They play in the oak tree and take acorns from the tree to throw at my sliding glass door.
They throw the acorns in an attempt to torture my dog.
Poor Kam. She stands at attention at the back door and stares at the squirrels who taunt her with their acorns and chatter.
I am not exaggerating, either. My deck and remaining six feet of back yard are littered with acorns. A carpet of acorns litter my yard.
Knowing how Kam, the Kamikaze dog, feels about the squirrels; Patrick and I taught her the word "squirrel." She stands at attention whenever anyone says "squirrel" and subsequently goes into psycho dog mode if we say it more than once. Her ears perk up and and her tail curls above her hind quarters. Then she spins a few circles and heads straight for the back door.
She likes to spin circles.
Kam stands at the back door, at full doggy attention, and stalks the squirrels. They enjoy torturing her. I've seen them come up onto the deck and climb up the screen door in an attempt to tease my poor puppy.
This morning Karma caught up with the devil squirrels.
I was showing our babysitter the squirrels at the back door when a pair of squirrels scampered up the oak tree in front of my back door.
"See," I tell her, "There they are. Those are the squirrels who drive Kam insane."
We had a clear view of these two rascals. The zigged and zagged and raced up the tree, vertically defying gravity along the way.
You know, up until one little guy fell.
Yeah, he attempted to gracefully jump from one branch to the next branch and missed, entirely. Then he subsequently fell thirty feet to the ground.
I laughed! I laughed until tears sprang to my eyes. I would feel bad about laughing so hard, but he was fine. He gingerly climbed back up the tree.
Coincidentally, last summer, a similar episode of grace befell my dog.
Patrick, my husband, had removed the stairs to our deck while he worked on replacing the side of the house (entirely different story). Poor Kam saw the devil squirrels and Patrick opened the door, not realizing she had gone into full attack mode. She took off after the squirrels like her Kamikaze namesake. She, being a dog, did not realize the deck ended with no stairs. So she ran at top speed and then dropped fifteen feet off the deck.
She was fine, but I am beginning to wonder about the jinx on my house. It must have something do to with the ghost mice. Which, again, are another story.
