In June, I found a baby squirrel climbing up the side of our house and looking inside the bathroom window. It was a mystery to me as to where it had come from. Days later I discovered that there was a squirrel nursery under our roof.
Despite the fact that I had once sealed all the holes to our roof with wire mesh, a mother squirrel had found an opening, and had decided to have her family there in the warm insulation. I decided I would just wait until the little ones were ready to leave their nest, then I would seal up their entrance to the roof.
A few days later, I was walking around the house and I heard a scratching noise coming from a downspout in the corner of the house. The downspout came down from the gutter and was attached to a buried pipe that drained the water away. In between the buried pipe and the down spout there was a crack through which I could see some tiny paws and some eyes peeking through--one of the baby squirrels had first squeezed itself through the opening of the gutter guard, and then had great fun running back and forth in the covered gutter until it decided to explore the downspout.
I got a screwdriver and took the downspout apart so the baby squirrel could climb out and free itself. The small squirrel was still about a foot below the top of the buried drain section. The sides of the pipe must have been too slippery because after an hour the squirrel still hadn’t managed to climb out.
Since we were just about to go to the Dunster Ice Cream Social, I thought I’d better try to get it out before we left. I went out to my shop and cut a thin strip of plywood, then slid it into the side of the pipe. Because it was wood and had a rough surface, I figured the baby squirrel would be able to use it to climb out. It did, and as soon as it was out, it scampered across the lawn and away from the house.
I had noticed that while the one squirrel was trapped in the drainpipe, its sibling continued having fun, running back and forth through the gutter. Since both baby squirrels were out of their nest in the roof, I thought I should take advantage of the situation and seal up the hole they had been using to access their home. I screwed a board across their entrance.
Several hours later when we returned from the ice cream social, the mother squirrel was on a nearby spruce tree chattering loudly, and the two baby squirrels were running around across the surface of the roof, trying to figure out how to get back into their home. This activity continued until it got dark.
The next morning to my dismay, I discovered the mother squirrel hanging on the side of the roof, chatting to a third baby squirrel who was still in the roof, and had been trapped behind my wire mesh squirrel proof barrier. I got a ladder and ripped the mesh away so the mother and child could reunite. The trapped baby squirrel was soon out, but one of the original baby squirrels slipped back under the roof to take its place.
In frustration, I just walked away and decided to let the squirrels alone for a couple of days. Two days later, I could see no sign of squirrel activities, so I assumed that maybe the whole family got fed up with all the trouble cause by that interfering human and took off to find a new home in the woods. I hoped so, but I refrained from sealing up that remaining entrance to my roof until I was confident that the the squirrels were gone.
You can view my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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