Attack of the squirrel

Marv I had named him.  Marvin was his full name, hubs insisted that he have a proper name.  So Marv for short.  I loved him, seriously I had a weird attachment to this little squirrel that would scurry around our back yard and do big leaps over our piles of leaves. I loved watching him. {I have to add here that I work from home people!  Sometimes I get desperate for friends, OK!}  He warmed my little heart when he would walk across the deck and stop in front of our back door.  I wondered if he wanted in out of the cold.  Turns out he did.

One day, mid morning, as I sat in the office on the top floor of our house I heard what sounded like little feet above my head.  For a few seconds the tapping above my head felt normal and I almost reminisced trying to figure out why my upstairs neighbors never sit down for a change - until I remembered - I no longer live in a basement apartment.  Then came the panic, NO ONE lives above me!  What in the WORLD is that noise!  Rats? Termites? Are they eating my house down? Oh crap.

I called hubs, "There is something above me! Something is walking in the attic!"  "Oh yeah" he said, "I thought I heard something the other night too."  "Well we need to get rid of it, I am kind of freaking out!" {He could obviously tell that.}

When pest control showed up, climbed on our roof and set squirrel traps I suddenly felt like I overreacted.  "It's definitely a squirrel", he told me "He chewed through the fan guard on your roof".  "You need to check these traps at LEAST 3 times a day.  We will come within 24 hours to get it, but they are live traps and the last thing we want the squirrel to do is freeze to death."  Oh crap.

When Ben got home I sputtered out how upset I was that it was probably Marv that would be taken! And what if he dies? It will be all my fault! I had grown kind of attached to that little guy.  I guess this is what happens when you put a Utah girl in the Northwest.  He assured me that squirrels are in fact really mean animals. That even if I named him he cannot live in our attic, he could do serious damage.  I knew all this, but I felt bad nonetheless.

I checked the traps for a week, 5 times a day.  I would jump out of bed in the morning and check the trap to be sure Marv didn't spend a freezing night in a cage on the roof.  I found nothing.  I began to wonder if these squirrels are actually smarter then we thought.  They were on to us and our traps.  I was wrong, one late evening I checked the trap before the light of day was gone.  I saw a hump of fur and tail. HE WAS IN THERE! Why wasn't he thrashing around like I had pictured in my mind?? Was he dead? I immediately called pest control.  They came to get him while I was gone.  When they called to tell us it was safe to repair the guard on the fan I didn't ask if he had survived.  I decided I didn't want to know, instead I would believe that he was safe and sound released into the hills.

Ben did the repairs.  This terrified me.  Hubs on the roof, freezing cold, in the small break from the rain is not my idea of a fun Saturday.  I stood on the ground in a blanket and watched.  Too scared to go inside, too cold to climb up on the roof with him.

 Of course he fixed it safe and sound!  Our attic is now free of squirrels.

I have been watching for Marv since all this hoopla.  HOPING that he wasn't the offender and was just taking a winters nap.  He has been no where to be found.

But have no fear!  Today as I looked out the window of my office {this helps my thinking of course} there was a new squirrel climbing the tree.  Hopefully he is smart enough to say off the roof.