Cirque du Squirrelay

(A big thank you to Hanna Goss, who reminded me that I needed to blog about these episodes--Thanks, Hanna!)
 
A few years ago, when we used to live in beautiful, wholesome Hendersonville, NC, we had what one might argue was the quirkiest house in the world.  It had been added on to so many times that it was virtually impossible to tell where the original house (built in the 1920s) ended and where all the myriad additions began.  One of the ways that the multiple additions were obvious was that many of the bathrooms and closets were kind of "bumped out" of the rest of the house.  In our bedroom, for example, there was a bump-out for the bathroom and one for the closet, and next  to the bathroom, there was a tiny metal landing with stairs going out to the backyard.  (Another quirky feature of the house--three back doors on the top level alone--it used to be a boarding-house, once upon a time.)  

I set this all up not because of the bump-outs, but because of one big, bright picture window in between two of these bumped-out places, where both sides of the bump-outs were covered by a roof.  Hanging directly in front of the window was a squirrel-feeder--the kind that's sort of a bungee cord with a corkscrew on the end, for attaching a cob of corn.  It didn't take the squirrels long to find the corn-cob hanging from the springy rope.  And it didn't take much longer than that for them to discover that it was fun to leap from one very close roof to another, in the service of jumping eventually onto the corn-cob rope.  On top of all this, there was a metal railing right beside the corn-cob, from which it was fun to leap as well.  

I probably don't have to tell you who else had a lot of fun with this arrangement.  There, mere inches before their eyes, our buddies could watch with utter abandon while squirrels leapt, somersaulted, hung from their little arms, and flipped upside down, all  for the buddies' entertainment.  (I'm not telling them any different.)  Even during times when the buddies were all fighting and bullying one another, Cirque du Squirrelay (as we called it) was enough to create a spontaneous detente, as the buddies lined up, shoulder to shoulder, to watch raptly.  (I couldn't help but wonder if this is what men looked like while watching a girly show--teased beyond belief but loving the excitement of the show nonetheless.  You could also compare it to a tennis match, as several heads all swiveled back and forth in unison to catch every second of the tasty-looking action)

Sometimes, when the squirrels were feeling really overconfident, one of them would exit the bungee and instead jump right on the windowsill.  You would think that the cats had just spotted the Beatles.  Everyone would go from mere rapt attention straight up the scale to utter frenzy, while they all jockeyed for the privilege of being the one with their nose pressed up against the squirrel's nose. 

Ah, those were the salad days.  Now we have the Jotul woodstove acting as our Peacemaker, but in those days, it was Cirque de Squirrelay. Now that I think about it, it's got to still be in a box downstairs somewhere.  We don't really have the same setup here, but we might be able to come up with something fun...I'll keep you posted.