crowbelle's Diaryland Diary

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The Watering Hole

THE WATERING HOLE

Apologies from this end, for neglecting this journal. It seems the world is spinning too fast for my slowed-down, over the hill brain these days, and trying to form one cohesive thought and put it into words is growing more and more difficult.

But just now, I saw something that touched me. It's very insignificant in the big scheme of things in the Universe, but nevertheless, it did.

To back-track. We live in a city. However, our home is in an area next to the conservation wooded area they call Salem Woods, so we are surrounded by many many forms of flora and fauna.

One such fauna that I particularly have enjoyed over the years is the gray tree squirrel. We have many, many of them as co-inhabitants of this neighborhood. And our back deck looks out onto some woods, and there are overhanging trees all around, so we get a goodly number of squirrels visiting our back deck. I used to buy shell peanuts by the large bagful and would empty a whole bag into a large dish on the deck, and then sit inside - looking out our sliding glass doors - and watch as they came, one by one, to partake of their bounty. Oh, how they LOVE peanuts...

Of course they left a horrible mess of shells all over the place, for me to clean up...but that didn't spoil the fun I had watching them.

This went on for a while, but then I finally got tired of all the work, so I stopped it. I felt I may be interfering with nature by giving them all those lovely peanuts, too...and I didn't want to do that.

So now they are on their own for food, but there is another need my little gray "nutkins" have, and that is water! And that I can provide with little work on my part.

So about a year ago, I sent away for a nice big hard plastic, heated water bowl, for the birds and squirrels! It cost me about $35 - I found it on-line somewhere. It's really a water dish for livestock of some sort, and it has a well-protected cord of about 2 feet, that plugs right into my outdoor electric receptacle there on the deck.

All Winter long, I kept that dish filled with nice fresh, non-frozen water for my little wooded friends.

They all know where it is by now. I have had it out there for almost a year.

There is also a squirrel's nest at the top of a nearby tree, and I have occasionally observed, at around dusk, several of the "nutkins" scurrying up the trees to that nest, and they all plop down inside it together...like a little Nutkin Sleep-Over!

I just never knew where they all slept! They are so sweet! Anyway, just now, I was sitting here, ready to turn off my webtv, feeling guilty again about not writing a journal entry, when one "Nutkin" came out onto the deck and over to the water dish. It's not plugged in now, so I moved it over to a spot underneath a chair, so I can see them easily from my chair. It's almost dark, and they are preparing for beddy-byes, I suppose. This one little guy cautiously went over to the dish, and leaned up and over the rim and drank to his heart's content...Ahhhh.. nothing like a nice drink after a long day of serious squirrel work! Well, just as he was drinking, another one came along.

And you know, even though they all sleep in the same nest, they don't like to share a water dish! The other one stopped dead in his tracks mid-deck...then hid over behind the plant pot...and waited for Nutkin #1 to finish his drink. Away went Nutkin #1, his thirst satisfied for the night, and Nutkin #2, moved over and took a nice long drink.

Yet another one came by, and I've never seen this happen before tonight, but a total of five of these little darlings came to the deck, one at a time...each one waiting his or her turn, for their last drink of the night.

That just touched my heart tonight. My dish was well worth the $35 plus tax, and shipping and handling, that I paid for it!

Cheers!

Photos by Sandy