Consider it Battle of the Squirrels – Part Two.

If you recall, our house rats and I declared war in October after they ate through my pumpkins, destroyed every garbage can I had, and generally attacked every time I went outside.

I thought we finally had an uneasy truce, but to my horror, they were secretly planning a massive sneak attack. 

This barrage occurred when a gang of the spawn burrowed into our house and set up camp. For the next several weeks, my wife and I dealt with the pleasant sounds of squirrels crawling up and down between our walls and in our attic. It was enough to drive a person, well, “nuts.”

Last week, we broke the truce. A professional was called in to board up the hole and to use “extreme prejudice” in removing the varmits. Of course, this led to an attack of remorse on my wife’s part, who had the hired gun hold off a week so she could get some traps from the Humane Society.

And so that’s what we did. But let no one kid you, our enemies are extremely smart.  It didn’t matter the traps were spring-loaded, they simply stepped over the spring and snagged the corn/apples/peanut butter. This led my wife to tie the corn/apple with a string.

The squirrels then did one of two thing: ate the string and got the goodies, or ate the goodies through the outside of the trap.

I was at the point of calling in the nuclear attack, or at least a shotgun, when low and behold, we actually caught one. This led to an unveiling of a new truth: namely, be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

We got what my wife wanted, a captured squirrel still alive. Unfortunately, this led to an even greater attack of remorse by my wife, who was now concerned we had captured the mother and what would happen to the babies and so forth and so on.

Of course, this became the topic of debate throughout the day until I finally swore not to speak to her again if the subject was brought up. She did well until about 4 a.m., when she awoke me and wondered if we should put the POW in the garage since it was raining.

Now, Corby is a wonderful mother and wife, but I realized then and there she would never make it as a prison guard. I guess I gave her some kind of look that worked because she rolled back over and didn’t say anything else about it. Now, if I could only remember what that look actually was.

Everything was fine until the morning. I awoke, walked down the stairs and saw her coming in with a carrot and muttering under her breath about something along the lines of  “what was I thinking … that’s just dumb.” She looked at me, said “shut up” and walked off. It appears she was thinking about feeding the prisoner before realizing the impacts.

And so I took the squirrel off far away. I seriously considered dropping it off at the shooting range, but instead found a nice little glen of trees.

End of story.

Not quite.

The counterattack occurred Sunday morning. A suicidal squirrel climbed a telephone pole, ate through a wire and shorted out a transformer. The rat got fried, as my neighbors can attest, but his mission was a success. Our entire block lost electrical power for the good part of an hour. I kid you not. and I had to apologize to our neighbors.

The battle continues. To date we have not lost any more power and have captured five more of the enemy.  Unfortunately, they refuse to tell us who or where their commander is. However, we have uncovered their base camp and called in the professional to board it up. Hopefully, we can all sue for peace and start a trade agreement. Or maybe they’ll call their friends over from Division Street and renew hostilities. We’ll see.

Until next time.

I have met the enemy, and it’s squirrels.

I’m not talking about the cute little things people throw peanuts to, but rather the furry, tree climbing rat-types.

To put it simply, squirrels in Nebraska are similar to ravens in Alaska. There aren’t a lot of squirrels in Alaska, at least not that you can see. That’s basically because they are scared to death of ravens. If a squirrel is stupid enough to come out, they are quickly attacked. 

Ravens are huge. And they are smart. I’ve watched them swarm around trash cans on pickup day and literally pull the handles off the trash cans and scatter trash all over. In Juneau, it was so bad everyone had to get those bungee cords and tie down their garbage.

Sometimes they figure those out too, and many a time I got a call from my wife swearing it was the last time she was going to pick up the trash scattered all over the yard because I didn’t sufficiently, glue, tie down, batten down, put enough concrete blocks down or whatever to keep the ravens out.

Native Americans in Juneau are primarily from the Tlinglit tribe and they are either members of the Raven or Eagle clan. Tradition has it that if you hear a raven calling your name, you’re toast – as in death is right around the corner.

That in itself is pretty scary because ravens talk a lot. You’ll be out in your yard with some neighbors talking and the ravens start yapping. Everyone gets real quiet, waiting to see what happens. If it’s just jabbering, and we didn’t hear our name, we’d give a big sigh of relief. Of course if you did hear something remotely like your name, your neighbors would give you this “gee sorry” look, pat you on your back and start putting their names on your stuff.

Here in Grand Island, the squirrels have taken the place of ravens, especially when it comes to: 1. scaring me to death and 2. getting into my garbage.

The death scare came around Halloween. We had put out several pumpkins and a harvest wreath with corn, squash and the like out on our front porch.  Bad idea. Very bad idea.

I remember walking out one morning to get the newspaper and noticed a hole in one of the pumpkins about the size of a tennis ball. Hmmm. I picked it up, looked into the hole and I swear a squirrel stuck its head out of the pumpkin and looked right at me.

It scared me to death. So much so that I threw the pumpkin out into the middle of the yard, smashing it and sending the squirrel squirreling. I think it ticked the squirrel off, whom I have since named Rat One, because the next morning I open the door and was startled by three squirrels at eye level munching away on the corn on the wreath. Rat One had brought his friends. Rat Two and Rat Three. (they don’t deserve anything fancier.

Now it was war.  As in any war, a key military strategy is to cut off the enemy’s supplies. So eight pumpkins and what remained of the wreath quickly went into the big rubber dumpster. Case closed, war won. Ha!

Two days later I noticed the evil mutants had literally chewed a hole through the dumpster and several trash bags were eaten through. How can anything eat through rubber or hard plastic? You’d think they’d at least be polite enough to clean up after themselves, but no, we have to just spew it all over.

It’s obvious I need a raven, but I’m afraid the squirrels would have the advantage here with home territory and all that.

My only solace is that the squirrels can’t speak and therefore can’t say my name. At least I think they can’t.

Until next time.

The occasion: Eleventh birthday of the eldest Sons of Thunder

The setting: In front of the Castle battlegrounds.

The event: BYOWG (Bring Your Own Water Gun); water balloons and MREs provided.

The problem: It’s raining cats and dogs and goats; oh yeah, and thunder – which became the problem.

Interesting question – do you have a water war when it’s raining? I mean, the intent of a water war is to get wet, but if you’re wet before it even starts, how do you determine the actual damage you inflict on the enemy?

But then there was the thunder. And the moms started calling to see if the war was still on because of the thunder. And I’m like, “we’re calling a war because of weather?”

And I get that look from the Little Black Dress and realize it’s probably better if I go make some more armaments, er, water balloons. My suggestion as I’m headed out to the armory is to wait a while – the party isn’t for three hours yet – and check the weather. That falls on deaf ears and plans are made to have everyone show up, do the presents/cake/hot dog thing and watch a movie. The war, scheduled for Saturday, is postponed to Monday.

Only women can postpone a war.

So the appointed battle time arrives and the kids come in and start to watch a movie. That lasts less than five minute. That’s because the eldest Sons of Thunder informs me there’s been no thunder for 20 minutes, and according to the subdivision pool rules, you are allowed back in the water after said 20 minutes of no thunder.

And I look over at the Little Black Dress, who overheard the above conversation and gave her a look, which basically meant “they’re going out for battle and not even you can stop it.”

And out they went.

I was very proud of the stockpile of ammunition I manufactured – more than 250 water balloons awaiting firing. When I was “in the zone” I managed to fill and tie-off one balloon about every 11 seconds.

Within two minutes and 17 seconds, every one of those friggin balloons was gone. Do you have any idea how long it takes to fill 250 water balloons? And not to mention the impact on my fingers from tying the little suckers.

And so over the next hour or so, the battle commenced. And of course because the moms wouldn’t listen to me, we did the whole thing over – complete with me tying another friggin 300 balloons – two days later.

Just a few observations:

-  Kids today make up a lot of rules

-  Kids will argue over the actual meaning of said rules more than they will just have fun

- Kids seem to forget the nature of the actual event and its purpose. In this case, at least to me, a water gun/balloon war means you will get wet.

- That phrase “there’s no ‘I’ in team” holds little value at certain times. For example, if your so-called teammate is still dry and standing next to you, and you have two water balloons in your hand, “team” definitely becomes “I.”

- The most-used phrase, is “But DUDE, I’m on your team!!!!”

- Among the “rules” created, many on the spur of the moment and seconds before being attacked, included the classic “If I’m wearing a towel you can’t shoot me.”

- We were forced to create a “no-fire zone.” This was the “reloading” area and it was determined you could not face-plant a balloon on another while they were loading up their water gun. Ironic since said water gun was going to be used to blast said other member with the balloon.

- There were several arguments over the actual size of the no-fire zone, so I had to actually rope off an area for said no-fire zone. This of course led to new rules: 1. At what point did you have to cease-fire as a warrior approached the no-fire zone; 2. No firing out from inside the no-fire zone; 3. And how far out of the no-fire zone did someone actually have to be before you were allowed to fire.

- And then there were the rules based on your weaponry. Those with basic water guns and smaller versions of those super-soaker type things were given carte blanche. However, those with serious soakers – the kind that shoot a serious, hard-core spray of water similar to a fire hose, were limited in their areas of attack. Why, well you could put someone’s eye out, and some wore contacts and yada yada yada.

- Mud is an irresistable force that no boy can resist. It is in their genetic code.

- The Little Black Dress is more than capable of holding her own in any water war. However, when the makeup starts to run to the point that raccoon eyes appear, well, it’s just time to withdraw.

And so the Water War of 2009, the two-day, weather-affected battle, ended. There were a few arguments (rules interpretations mainly), a few sore feelings (mainly as to why someone was hit when they were on the same team).

But all was forgiven, transgressions forgotten, with one simple bribe.

Cookie cake.