No Bull...winkle

Long time, no post. Sorry. I've been off the bike for quite some time, and have been working on house projects and obsessing about modifications I could do to the car. That's about it.

Last night after we got home from dinner with friends, I headed up to the bedroom and was about to go back downstairs when some movement in the corner caught my eye. I saw a big mouse go skittering behind a half-open door. I looked closely and saw a bushy tail sticking out. Hmmm... not a mouse.

I closed the door and startled a juvenile gray squirrel. It ran across the floor and into the bathroom. Great - more rodents in the house. At least this fellow wasn't a bat. I have some sort of instinctual problem with bats flying around my head and usually end up in a prone position on the floor while I crawl around to open up windows and doors.

Sue tossed up a big cereal box from the recycling bin. I figured if I could get the little guy into the box, I'd just take him outside. No problem.

I went into the bathroom and looked around the floor. Nothing. A scratching noise brought my eyes up to the top of the doorframe leading up to the attic. The little bugger had scampered up to there and was hanging out watching to see what I'd do next. It was then that I noticed something odd.

Wait a minute. His tail is bushy, but it's flat. And what's all that extra skin wadded up between his front and rear legs? And that's how I realized I'd met my first-ever flying squirrel.

photo source unknown

I slowly pushed the open box up the wall towards him. My plan was to get him to fall into the box, close it up, and carry him out. Well, flying squirrels have pretty good control over that "falling" part. He leapt into midair over my head and gently glided across the room to the far corner, then ran up the entry doorframe. Having a good amount of potential energy is a good thing when you're a flying squirrel, I suppose.

I tried the box thing again, with similar results. He dropped to the floor and ran for the corner between the sink and the enclosed tub. There, much to my chagrin, he found a gap between the wood and tiles just large enough for him to squeeze through.

With him safely back into the plumbing spaces in the floor and walls, there was nothing to do except go to bed and hope that he got out safely without taking a detour to run across our faces while we slept.

Thankfully, I haven't seen any sign of a moose in the walls, so I'm counting myself lucky.