Spring 2023 and Beyond
The sweet Carolina wrens did not return in the spring of 2023. I’m sure this was partly because the squirrel had continued to slowly demolish the chair cushion, taking every bit of the treasured fluffs of polyester fiberfill one mouthful at a time.
By winter’s end 2024 the only thing remaining of the chair cushion was a shredded green shell of its original glory. I didn’t mind the destruction. In fact, felt a sense of satisfaction that I had contributed to keeping at least one squirrel warmer over the cold winter months.
Now an unexpected divergence in the story.
As the spring rains of 2024 arrived, I noticed a bad overflow from the front gutter. Not just when rains were torrential, but even in light rains. The kind of overflow that erodes the ground below. Kind of a mini-Niagara or Victoria Falls.
If left unresolved I could envision a new land feature developing.: The King Arthur Gorge, The Guinevere Gulch or The Camelot Gap. And that could lead to having to obtain a city permit for all the tourists it would attract. Nope, not going to happen. Time for action.
Ladders are not my friend, so I tried to spy from the ground what the issue was. And with gutter covers there wasn’t much to see until one day I noticed some clumpy grayish stuff protruding from between the gutter and the gutter cover. It was a revelation! It looked like dirty tufts of polyester fiberfill!
Time to call for gutter cleaning. Only it seemed to be a job beyond the capability of The Gutter Ninjas, The Gutter Genies, The Gutter Guys and The Gutter Junkies. Unbelievable! I did finally find someone who said, “No problem! I’ll just remove that segment of gutter cover and fish out whatever is in there blocking the works.” His name was Carlos. Saint Carlos in my opinion, ranking right up there with Carlos Santana, only instead of playing amazing guitar, he fixes gutters. Both make me want to sing! La la la laaaaaaaa!
Carlos discovered that something had chewed a hole in the end gutter cap to allow access to the covered gutter space. He also discovered polyester fiberfill! An entire chair cushion’s worth of polyester fiberfill! All the polyester fiberfill that one particular squirrel did not want to share with any other critters. All the polyester fiberfill that had been slowly squirreled away over the past 2 years!!!
