The Audacity!

Although it has been a fairly warm summer so far, the blackberries are taking their sweet time to ripen. This could of course be partially due to the fact that some of them are being picked when not quite ripe by certain strollers by (yes – guilty as charged).

Yesterday morning yours truly was taking his regular morning walk with my cat Calvin on my shoulder – a route that consists of a one-way journey riding on my shoulder – with the return trip being a walk on Calvin’s behalf attached to his leash which he has learned to put up with over the years. This makes for interesting observations on his behalf and lots of sniffing which he seems to enjoy.

A morning breeze greets us coming from the somewhat water depleted marshes at this time of year. A long spread out row of blackberry bushes comes into view at which I then pause to pick a few semi-ripe berries. A good appetizer before breakfast one contemplates, and healthy too. In the meantime the return route is being carefully observed by Calvin.

Imagine my surprise as all of a sudden there is loud irate chatter coming from the blackberries. A ground squirrel – the operative word here being “ground” is sitting about two to three feet above the ground inside the blackberry bushes and telling us in no uncertain terms that these are “his or her” blackberries. The nerve! Greedy too! There are potentially enough berries here to feed an armada of ground squirrels. Calvin completely ignores this unwelcome morning chatter as he ignores almost all ground squirrels. You, the loud miscreant chatting up a storm are fortunate you are not a mouse otherwise such calm would not prevail on my shoulder. You would be “toast” as the expression goes.

I have to get in my comments too as I bark at the ground squirrel to take a hike to the lower domains, and that I will be eating as many blackberries as I please, thank you very much. Maybe even give some to the birds. It’s a battle of wills, or blackberry entitlement to be more precise.

The doofus does scuttle down to the ground after he senses my displeasure at all this needless racket, but the chattering continues, so Calvin and I proceed on our walk to get away from this irritating blabbermouth. Hard to believe such a small critter can make so much noise.

May your week be ground squirrel free…

© 2024 Matthias Leue