Squirrelly Business!

Wednesday morning brought some of the worst weather that I've seen yet this winter. The snow - well, that isn't so bad. And the cold - I've got gear for that. But freezing rain and ice is astoundingly awful and scary. And that's what we got. I took the bus to work, and it had to pull over and stop for a while - twice - until roads were treated. I looked up at the bus driver and saw that his hands were shaking; yes, it was that bad.

There were many accidents and road closures, including a 40-tractor-trailer-truck pile-up that closed Interstate 80 for the remainder of the day. The roads were very, very bad. The sidewalks were even worse. You couldn't walk even a few feet without slipping and sliding.

I had hoped to take a few pictures on campus in the morning, but as soon as I took my first step off the bus - and slid, and slid - I knew I wasn't doing anything extra. In fact, I did the minimum I had to. And arrived in my building at work practically shaking from fear. And all of this from one who wasn't even driving!

But by about 11 am, the sun started to come out, and it warmed up, and the ice melted, and everything turned into a slushy mess. By afternoon, the weather was balmy, almost springlike. That's how it is this time of year. It's so treacherous out in the morning that you could lose your life, but to look at the weather in the afternoon, you'd never guess how awful the morning conditions had been.

And so, in the late afternoon, when I took the bus over to campus, I remembered the squirrel who had been making her nest in a tree by the duck pond, and I took some time to walk over there and check on things. I did find one or two squirrels bathing on branches on the big tree over the duck pond, and it's possible one of them may have been the squirrel I photographed there before. I did not yet see any little heads peeking out of the hole.

But then . . . you might say I struck gold! I walked over to the elms around Old Main and was trying to take pictures of one of my favorite trees. But there was a girl in a blue coat in my shot, and as I was waiting patiently  for her to move out of my shot, I noticed that - hey, she was feeding a squirrel in the tree a peanut. And - even more hey! maybe even a what the heck! - the squirrel jumped from the tree right into her arms!

And then suddenly, the squirrel was down on the ground in the snow and the girl was chasing the squirrel, as it ran past us both at top speed with its peanut. She was trying to take a picture of it with her cell phone, and the squirrel itself was trying to find a spot (not easy in all this snow) to bury its nut, without any of us seeing where the prize was hidden! "She won't bury it while we're looking!" the girl told me. And just like that, the squirrel was gone; it had disappeared under a bush. And when it emerged, there was no more peanut!

And we laughed and giggled, and I took a few pictures. She noticed the squirrel was thirsty - it was licking water off the sidewalk - and so she got out her water bottle and put some water in her hand, and the squirrel drank it. And she gave it some more peanuts, and the squirrel climbed into her arms, where she held it and petted it and talked to it, while it ate its precious snack. And then I looked at her kind of shyly and asked, "You're Penn State's famous Squirrel Whisperer, aren't you?" And she smiled and said Yes, she was. We introduced ourselves, and I told her that I was a squirrel lover too.

And all this time, I was taking pictures. And she said, "If you want some good squirrel pictures, I can show you some of the best squirrel trees." And I said Yes, and so she did! And we walked down a ways to yet another tree, and she made some chirping sounds, and I looked up above us, and out of this hole in the tree popped a squirrel head!

By the time we were done, at least two squirrels had emerged from the hole in the tree, and one of them had come down and retrieved a peanut and scampered back up. The second squirrel (this one) had been waiting inside the hole, and it chased off the one who had emerged just a few minutes ago. "Sometimes they do that," she said. "The one waiting in the hole chases off the one who just came out, when it tries to get back in!"

But then there was a great fluffing of tails and some lively squirrelly banter, and suddenly somehow both squirrels were back inside. "Sometimes a couple of them pop their heads out at once, and you can see their heads all lined up, one on top of the other, inside the hole!" she said. Well, that didn't actually happen on this day, but I was pleased with this photo of the second squirrel smiling happily in its little hole in the tree, on one of the very first springlike afternoons, so that is today's Blip!

The young woman I hung out with and watched squirrels with for a few minutes was Penn State's famous Squirrel Whisperer. You can find out more about her (and see videos of her with the squirrels) if you google her online, or search "Penn State Squirrel Whisperer" on YouTube. She has a gift for making friends with squirrels. She adores them, and she treats them quite well, and they clearly adore her right back. And so the tune I have picked to accompany this photo is on behalf of the squirrels. I dedicate this song (from them) to the Squirrel Whisperer on this day. Andrew Gold, Thank You for Being a Friend.