One Man’s War
by Elon Green
Looking back, all was lost the moment I resolved to do something about the tree squirrels, more than a year ago.
All I wanted, truly, was to feed the backyard birds. We’d been in the house a short time, not long after we left the city; I bought an old-school spherical feeder, the sort I remember hanging outside my grandparents’ window in North Woodmere, attracting cardinals, bluejays, robins, and the like. I hung ours off a black metal crook next to the garage because, I’d read, the birds liked privacy, and the area was bookended by hedges. My hope was that birds would congregate, eat and presumably gab, and I’d watch from the kitchen like a modern-day Jimmy Stewart.
And that’s how it went, in fact, more or less uninterrupted, for the better part of a decade. The birds got fed, and I liked feeding them. Sure, there were squirrels, but they mostly kept a respectful distance. A few times, though, they broke into the shed where I kept the bag of seed and tore it to ribbons, and left a goddamn mess.
Keep us breathing fire!
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