Nature Girl

One of the reasons I love my apartment so much is because of the two porches/decks/balconies/whatever you want to call them. Having them is like having two extra rooms in our home and I try to use them as often as I can. All winter long, I was searching for the perfect patio furniture set, torturing myself by imagining dinner, drinks, lounging outside in the summer. Spike kept telling me it was too soon and that I had to wait, but in the beginning of April I finally convinced him that it was time. We went to Home Depot, we went to Target, and I started getting nervous. Nothing fit the perfect image in my head... what would I do without my outdoor living room all summer? Finally, we found an ideal option at Lowes and I was thrilled. Not thrilled, however, was Spike's father who had to come to the Lowes parking lot because the chairs wouldn't fit in the Jeep. Not thrilled were we either after it took us the rest of the day to put the damn thing together. But now it's out on the porch and it's just wonderful... we eat dinner out there whenever we can, we read the papers there on Sunday, and I just love being outside in my own personal space! I loved it at least, until the squirrels showed up.

I've always thought that squirrels were just rats with bushy tails. I think it's disgusting when people feed them and take pictures of them in Boston Common. The last thing I wanted was to have my own personal squirrel collection. Last weekend, when I was sitting on the porch, enjoying my lunch and the sun, respectively. I heard a rustling sound from under the far side of our porch. As I am a huge chicken who loves nature from afar, I waited until Spike came out and made him find out what it was. When he lifted the boards from the far side of the porch, he found a whole nest of squirrels with babies and everything. I scooted pretty quickly into the house and didn't go out again. I wasn't afraid or anything, I just found it really creepy. I decided we had to get rid of the nest because I was not going to share my porch with a whole bunch of rodents.

We waited until it was going to rain and lifted all the boards up. I hadn't actually seen the squirrels until this point and let me tell you, rodents or not, the babies were frickin' cute. The poor things were frozen in fear and they didn't know what to do! Once they vacated their nest, Spike shoveled out the leaves and twigs and found a dead squirrel in all of the debris. The fact that there was a dead squirrel underneath an area I walk with bare feet still gives me the creeps. I mean, the squirrels had to go, right? Spike and I are not cruel and insquirrelane, are we? We didn't actually hurt them, we just destroyed their home! Oh no.... the cycle of guilt continues.