For the past six weeks, I’ve had an all-out war with a family of squirrels. Sometime last fall, or over the winter, they decided to make our home their home.
We certainly enjoy opening our home for guests, but a squirrel family, though cute, are unwelcome guests.
When I first discovered the holes they were chewing through our house, my thought was to get out my gun and shoot them. That’s what I would do if I were still in Montana.
But being in a suburb of Dallas, I thought that the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate me shooting a gun next door, and so went down to Home Depot to get some poison.
As it turns out, it’s illegal to poison squirrels.
Instead, I was supposed to use to a live trap to capture them. So I went to the Animal Shelter to get my trap.
I caught the first squirrel in about two days. I used apples and peanut butter as bait. Then I reset the trap and waited. For a week, I never heard another squirrel, so I figured they left. I returned the trap and got up on our treacherously steep roof to patch the holes, then went into the attic and put screen over the other holes.
The very next day, I heard the squirrels chewing new holes to get out of our house. Since I had closed off their exit doors, they decided to make new ones. So I went back down to the shelter, got the trap again, set it, and caught another squirrel, then waited and waited, and not hearing anything, patched the new holes, and returned the trap.
The very next day, I heard the squirrels chewing new holes to get out of our house. Since I had closed off their exit doors, they decided to make new ones. So I went back down to the shelter, got the trap again, set it, and caught another squirrel, then waited and waited, and not hearing anything, patched the new holes, and returned the trap. (Yes, I meant to repeat the last paragraph. Do you see a pattern here?)
Two days ago, I got up on the roof and through some super-sleuthing, figured out where the nest was, and tore part of the roof off to get at it. I spent an hour or more pulling squirrel nesting out of my roof. In the process I found two dead squrrels. (I didn’t kill them, honest!) Today, I patched that hole in the roof and will return the trap to the Animal Shelter. Tomorrow, I fully expect to hear squirrels chewing holes in my house.
Why am I sharing all this?
I believe that God wants to teach us things through nature. It is, of course, one of the four primary ways God teaches us things (the other three being Scripture, conscience, and other people). These squirrels taught me that when a door is closed, sometimes you just have to chew a new one. If you throw up your hands in defeat and say “God’s not opening any doors for me!” you’ll starve to death.
I’m facing a time in my life right now when all the doors seem closed, and have been wondering why God doesn’t open one for me to walk through. “I’ve got a family to feed!” I tell Him.
But I’m beginning to think that by listening to squirrels chew holes in my house, God is telling me He doesn’t want me to go through any of those doors I’ve been knocking on. Instead, He wants me to chew a new one.
I’m excited to see where I come out, but I hope the owner of the house doesn’t get too mad…
Your optimism is really unbelievable. First you suffer this great injustice and now squirrels are CHEWING HOLES IN YOUR HOUSE, but you take a lesson from it and keep going.
I’ve been through my share of hardship, but my anger and despair generally just fade as I move on. You seem determined to willfully force that negative energy in a positive direction. I admire that.
Oh, and cats do very well in controlling indoor squirrels. Put a cat in the attic (or give one access to it) and the squirrels will move on to easier pickings. I speak from experience. After Katrina there were many holes in my roof and quite a bit of wildlife found its way in. When my neighbors came back with their three (!) cats, everything disappeared.
Bullet,
A cat! That is a great idea, and my three girls will love it. We might just do that.
And to tell you the truth, I have to do everything I can to stay optimistic, because I’m too afraid of the alternatives…but then, I haven’t gone through Katrina. I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been.
By the way, did you hear they do have a t-shirt for that book? Check the comments section again, and there is a link posted there.
Needed to hear this, thanks! :]
Yipeng,
Thanks for the comment. I checked out your blog and really appreciated the post called “Preparing the Harvest.” Keep up the good work over there.
The thing I can’t believe this that you have a constitutional right to bear arms, but you can’t poison squirrels!
I think you should have gone with your first instinct, and used the shotgun.
David,
That’s very funny. It is kind of ironic, isn’t it? What are gun laws in New Zealand?
I don’t even know the specifics of applying for a firearms permit. The vast majority of people in the city don’t own guns.
If someone gets shot, it is quite big news here.
From a newspaper article quoted on http://guncontrol.org.nz/ ;
“Yet, figures collected by the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council show relatively few gun-related deaths: 48 in 2003 and 55 in 2002. The Public Health Association previously reported an average of 80 gun deaths and 65 hospital admissions a year. The statistics are dominated by suicides, which account for 80 to 90 per cent of gun-related deaths; the balance is typically hunting accidents, accidental shootings, police shootings and homicides.
Compare this to the United States’ 30,136 gun-related deaths in 2003 – nearly eight times higher per capita than New Zealand’s figures – and our reason for being satisfied becomes more clear.”
I’m pretty sure we don’t permit squirrels to use guns.
You know what I find unbelievable? That you tell this story of wanting to, first, tear bloody holes through one of God’s creatures, then, when that wasn’t possible, wrack the intestines of one of God’s creatures with the slow death of poison, and after all that frustration of not being able to destroy, kill, ever how painfully or slowly, of finally having to settle with just trapping them (and I don’t even want to know what you did with them once they were trapped; did you find some explosives? drown them? slingshot them into Hell?), you learned a valuable lesson from God. You know what else he wasy trying to tell you? Use your brain before reacing automatically for the ammo and poison. Squirrels go to heaven, too, you know. And if you were lucky enough to get there yourself (how many small mammal murders does it take to qualify for Hell?), they’ll be after your nuts as soon as St. Peter steps aside.
God bless you, Jeremy. But seriously. Give peace a chance.
Well, God also teaches us to be humane to other creatures when possible, and in this situation it was quite possible. Instead of torturing these squirrels by closing their holes, thus dooming them to a slow death, you should have used professional services that help people get rid of animals without hurting those animals. Squirrels are some of the most intelligent animals, and one can only imagine what they had to go through when realized that they were trapped with no way out. It’s not about “chewing” one’s way in this case – a little squirrel can only chew so much without food and air, especially when it is not a tiny nut, but very thick wood ( unless your house is made up of twigs). I hope ( since you kept mentioning God), you will pray about ALL the lessons God wanted you to learn from this, not just the ones you’ve come up with yourself.
astra,
I didn’t hurt any squirrels. Aside from that being illegal, I treated them as humanely as possible. The ones that died in there had clearly been dead a long time….long before I plugged up any holes. I only plugged up holes after I thought I had trapped and released them all.
Did it occur to you to get a squirrel nesting box and hang it on a tree so the squirrels could have a warm and dry place to go? Perhaps God is telling you something different from what you interpreted. Perhaps He is telling you that you only get as much compassion from Him as you give to His most helpless creatures. (A gun… really?)