Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom

Still no real cooking for WWW; here’s a link to the next thing I want to try from King Arthur flour:

KA Donut Muffins. The reviews suggest making them in mini-muffin cups so that they really do taste like donut holes.

Back to my post title:

Yesterday I heard a rough scratching noise coming from my kitchen. I went to check it out, because Em’s cat has been doing a lot of scratching lately, and I wanted to deter her from causing damage.  I ended up not catching her in the act, but noticed an empty box, and thought, “well maybe she was scratching that or pulling the tape.” This afternoon, around the same time, from the living room, I heard a noise in the kitchen so I snuck out to see what the cat was up to again. I looked about and saw her lying peacefully in one of my kitchen windows. I heard the noise to her left and saw this little bastard squirrel  clinging to the screen on the outside, having ripped a 1" x 2" hole and a quarter-sized hole below that. I gasped a WTF  and he jumped to the roof. I followed outside, and he was up at the ridge, looking down at me  and laughing. (Didn’t Brendan Fraser & Brooke Shields just do a movie about this???)

I knew from other squirrel-in-the-house-horror stories that I needed to repair the screen ASAP, so I ran right out to the hardware store for some screen patches and rodent deterrent, and in the less than 15 minutes it took to get back home, he has made an "L"-shaped 6" x 2" rip out of the first hole, and made an additional attempt in the second window screen with a 1-1/2" x 3" hole (I have a double window over the sink). Luckily, I had the foresight to close down the sashes before I left, other wise I would have a new roommate. And now my little patch kit is nowhere big enough to fix the holes. I’m going to have to re-screen both panels.  Mother-F-*&%^X*(*!!!-er!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right side (from outside):

right screen

Left side:

left screen

In 13 years here, I've NEVER had this problem!!!! With all the cooking I do, and we don’t leave  food out on the counters; I have NO idea what has attracted this vermin!

On top of it all, Emily's cat was lying in the second window watching the squirrel's break-in attempt. Useless piece of shit.

Plus I now can’t open my kitchen windows- my largest source of air circulation in the whole downstairs.

I swear I must have tortured babies and kittens in a prior life to have this kind of luck! I really don’t have time for this!!!

5 comments:

Peggy Lee said...

HA! OK...I really am sorry for the trouble this squirrel has caused you but in reading your story I had to laugh out loud. I read the entire post to Masterchief. He was almost as equally amused. (what can I say...he's a man)

Hope you get your rodent problems under control soon, meanwhile..NO COOKIE BAKING!!

Deborah said...

I laughed so hard. I couldn't help it. Of course, I am sorry that those tree rats have decided to invade your home. What's the matter with the cats and the dog. Shouldn't they be on the job? Now, because I laughed Iam probably be invaded by the tree rats that you send to my house.

Anna van Schurman said...

Even having a dog doesn't keep squirrels from raiding the recycling for nest building materials, not to mention having them run over the roof in the middle of the night. Which does prompt the dog to bark. Excellent. Still don't hate the squirrels as much as rabbits.

Jeanne said...

Your squirrels must be related to ours; they ate a garage vent, a window sash and a grill cover!

Deborah said...

Mary, I found another food site you might be interested in. www.poorgirlgourmet.blogspot.com She is a local woman who now has a cookbook. Her claim to fame is that she breaks down everything in to how much it will cost. Good food cheap.