23 April 2007

A squirrley story.

During my daily lunchtime walk, I saw a squirrel with a closed dandelion blossom in his paws. I immediately stopped to see what his deal was. The squirrel went to a nearby Norway spruce and sat by the trunk and looked at me, getting a little curious about what I was up to, the way squirrels do. And then he took the flower and placed it crossways in his mouth, like a dog carrying a bone, and climbed up the back of the tree. I couldn't see him, but the closed dandelion ascended the tree under its own power.

Then he reached a branch and took the dandelion out of his mouth and shook his tail and gave me the once-over. He picked up the dandelion and stripped some of the outer layer of the stem off, holding the dandelion much as you would hold a flute. I was enchanted.

Then he turned the bottom of the dandelion stem up and started to eat it with little crunches. I watched him for a while, then moved on.

I began to eye the dandelions. Did dandelions taste good to a squirrel? I have seen them eating maple blossoms off trees. Was a dandelion a spring tonic to a squirrel? I picked one of my own, and the white sap oozed out of the stem. Put a teeny bit between my teeth. The bitter went straight to the back of my tongue. whoo! Glad I'm not a squirrel.

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