When we first came back here over two years ago, Peg lamented a lot of things. The pastures were grown over with chest-high weeds. The well had been spiked as a going-away present by the prior occupant. All the farm equipment was broken or had disappeared. But high on her list of regrets was that the fox squirrels were gone.
I had never seen a fox squirrel before, but knew something different was out there beyond the fenceline one morning last year, not long after we had mowed around the pond. It was bigger than any squirrel I'd ever seen--a lot bigger--and my near-sightedness left me guessing that it might be an otter or some neighbor's yip yip dog.
But it wasn't. As the dense dog fennel gave way to mowed grass, a fox squirrel had reappeared.
He (or she) kept coming back most mornings, bounding across the lawn and up a tree and generally ignoring our pointing and gawking. But always alone, which struck us as sad given that years ago there was a family of fox squirrels on the property, and these guys live for up to 18 years. Maybe one of our surfeit of hawks nabbed the spouse, leaving the other to wander Wyldswood alone.
But no--to our delight about three weeks ago we saw two chasing each other around the trunk of a pine tree. They climbed up to the highest perch, probably sixty feet up in the air, and disappeared into a clump of branches we figure must be their nest. It seems that part of Wyldswood returning to life will be the patter of tiny squirrel feet before too long.
Now we regularly see the fox squirrels roaming the property.
The other day I walked out to the barn to check on a few guineas who were screaming their heads off over some imagined threat, as is their wont, and found a fox squirrel there in their midst, digging around nonchalantly in the hay in the horse stall for who knows what. He stood up on his hind legs to make note of me making note of him, then turned away and returned to his digging.
We've all gotten comfortable with each other at Wyldswood. During these loneliest of days for so many, this place is anything but lonely, and except for an aggressively carnivorous fox and the occasional hawk on the hunt, everyone seems to get along just fine. It is life in a Joel Chandler Harris story, with each animal having its own unique personality. Brer Rooster, Brer Bull, and now Brer Squirrel.
This is, unexpectedly, the best of times.
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