Paul Rudd at Hollywood Life Magazine’s 7th Annual Breakthrough Awards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m not sure why this is news, or even in existence on the web.
But, in the interest of keeping my readers informed, especially my lady friends, here’s an awkward squirrel encounter by actor/Jayhawk heartthrob Paul Rudd:
He just pulled out a flattened squirrel,” Rudd said, of his buddy finding a dead squirrel in his couch.
So Portlandia: Probably-stoned guy, with hot pink sunglasses, long hair, white tee…and a fluffy, friendly squirrel on his shoulder.
Duluth News Tribune outdoors columnist Sam Cook explains that while Twiggy the Water Skiing Squirrel is whiling away her winter in sunny Florida, he’s been driven to “full-skitter alert” for the sound of squirrels as they try to escape the sub-freezing temps and seek a little shelter in his house.
He’s not alone, he writes:
“I hope we are better off than one woman who wrote me after reading of our squirrel issue. She live-trapped squirrels or ground squirrels that presumably were getting in her house — and drowned 36 of them. Despite that, she still had squirrels in her house.”
According to the Telegraph, nurses who work in rural areas in the U.K. are under assault by squirrels, and are now being instructed to “walk in pairs” to avoid violent confrontations and to “make loud noises” to scare them off. (When has that ever worked?)
“One district nurse was left with “reddening of the scalp” after being attacked.
In her “squirrel attack report” she wrote: “On walking up farm access I was jumped upon by a squirrel. Then another landed on my head.” She rated the “severity of incident” as “insignificant to catastrophic”.
That’s quite a big range, no? Insignificant to catastrophic?
The article ends with an equally puzzling sentence:
“Last year, inventor Mike Madden suffered whiplash after a squirrel leapt on him as he tested a head-mounted bird feeding try in Huddersfield.”
(He put a bird feeder on his head? This is like holding out a bloody steak in your hand and then blaming a dog for biting you.)
The Daily Mail has an article today on Pete, a squirrel that hangs around a school in Hampshire, U.K.
What makes Pete so interesting is that he’s purple:
Read the article to find out what may be behind Pete’s purple coat! And here are more photos.
You can’t blame a squirrel for being tempted by all the junk food found in gas station convenience stores. Especially with a stiff winter chill blanketing the Midwest. But you’d think they’d go after the nuts or crackers — not so, apparently:
“As [Ohio cop] Sergeant Doug Hines was talking with a store employee, they heard a rustling coming from one of the aisles and found an adult black squirrel munching on some chocolate snack cakes.
Police say Officer Brandon McCray arrived to provide back-up, and there were some unsuccessful attempts to wrangle the animal out of the store — until the squirrel attached itself to McCray’s back.”
McCray ran outside, where the squirrel was brushed off his back, and escaped, unharmed, tummy full of cookies.
Red squirrels normally set up their nests far away from humans and other predators. But an oddball squirrel in Pennsylvania decided to make use of a Ford Explorer while the owners were away, reports the Centre Daily newspaper.
The article states “Under the hood, every nook and cranny of the engine compartment was filled with black walnuts, grasses, rope and even cotton as the squirrel built its nest there.”
Click the link above to see the amazing photo of the complicated nest.
HomeBody, the Orange County Register, California blog about home and gardening, will now devote each Saturday to “squirrel talk.” This week’s discussion revolves around squirrels enjoying the fruit of an avocado tree (mmmmmmm – you simply can’t blame a squirrel for raiding the best of what mother nature has to offer, food-wise!) and another reader discussing how he’s got plenty of wildlife in his yard — not just squirrels, but raccoons, owls and coyotes. Sounds like fun!
This week, bad-boy Dallas Quick humor columnist Gordon Keith mourns the end of his lifelong effort to never hit squirrels with his car.
“He covered his eyes with his little front paws and screamed. The nut fell from his mouth in slow motion and bounced into a storm grate. I screamed inside my car. Neighbors screamed inside their homes.”
The squirrel might had met a different fate had it been holding a bag of weed.
“I once hit a deer so hard on a country road that he sailed through my windshield and ended up spread-eagle in the passenger’s seat. Fortunately, he was unhurt, and rode all the way to Phoenix with me, loading the one-hitter and working the iPod.”
The Austin-American Statesman ran an excellent gardening article this weekend on the battle between the city gardener and the city squirrel.
“John Dromgoole, owner of the Natural Gardener, agrees that squirrels are a difficult problem for Austin gardeners. He suggests that our regional droughts are a factor, but he also believes that the most likely reason for squirrels’ recent impact on local yards is the rapid loss of their natural habitat, including fewer rodent-controlling predators.
This is especially true for wilderness-preferring fox squirrels, the predominant squirrel species in Central Texas. Having adapted to urban conditions, they are now major players in our lives.
When it comes to protecting plants from squirrels, so much has been tried, so little has worked. It’s humiliating that this rodent’s pecan-sized, 6-gram brain is so hard for us to outwit.”
