You may recall that two of our smaller sheds have been taken over by two squirrels. The shed closest to our firepit, where we store firewood, remained quite clean over the winter. There were a few mushrooms here and there and some newspaper strewn about but a fairly easy mess to clean up.
The other shed, our shed for storing garden tools and small fencing materials, was another story. The squirrel in there had made another large nest on the top shelf with grass and moss.
He had also stuffed the same materials down the spaces between the inner and outer walls. He got tired of trying to squeeze under the door so he made himself a hole to get in from the roof.
I was frustrated enough with the smell of “barn” in there that I removed its nest. I felt kind of bad afterwards so, instead of tossing out all the mushrooms it had collected, I collected them from various spots and put them in a box and left them on the shelf.
After dealing with the squirrel mess, I moved some tools and materials around in there trying to make it easier to get things in and out.
Either the squirrel didn’t know who had cleaned out the shed or it wasn’t too upset with me. It began coming right up to me the last couple weeks looking for treats. If I am slow in pulling out a peanut, it starts to climb my legs. Depending on which pants I am wearing, that hurts a fair bit.
We go into that garden shed almost every day and sometimes the squirrel is in there, sometimes not. Chris went in earlier this week to grab a shovel and he immediately called me over. Somehow the squirrel had gotten itself completely caught in a fishing net that we had hanging on a nail. The net had fallen to the floor with the squirrel in it.
I ran…ok I walked quickly…to the garage to get some scissors. Chris slowly cut away the netting. Luckily we were both wearing some gloves as the squirrel tried biting us a few times as we tried to steady it. The only time it stayed still was when I distracted it with some shelled peanuts. Here is the squirrel before the last few cuts to freedom.
We were so scared by this event that we moved the deer fencing, and anything else that the squirrel could get caught in, to the garage. We both have been feeding it extra peanuts since then. He knows how to beg and comes to the door and scratches for treats. I thought this was a cute photo of it sitting on my rail bird feeder eating a peanut.
I am sure the squirrel will begin making a new nest for winter but for now I am happy to walk into a clean shed and not trip on things. He is so NOT scared of me that when I went in there yesterday morning around 9am, he had just woken up, yawned and stretched before heading out. We definitely have a lazy carefree tenant.