Several years ago, while in Sequim, Washington, we bought some strawberry plants from a local farmer. We planted them in a raised bed that Michael built just outside a window next to my main computer. From this vantage point, I can see Indy, the neighborhood cat, on the roof of the shed when he comes to pay a visit. And, from time to time, the occasional squirrel runs across it to points unknown. This spring, a mama squirrel has taken residence in the shed (after chewing a bit of wood away to get into it), and I see her go back and forth to her nest. Late yesterday afternoon I glanced up as a squirrel (not mama, perhaps papa?) was intently surveying the (always unproductive) strawberry bed below. I knew there was one almost-ripe strawberry available and I was fairly certain that’s what this squirrel had seen, too. I happened to have my camera at the ready and got these shots—from the squirrel’s roof dive, to rooting for the prized strawberry, to that first delicious bite, to sensing he was being watched, to running off (but not too far) with his little ruby red loot. Not the best photos shot through the window, but it was a slice of life captured in time.
When I told Michael about it, he asked why I didn’t run it off. After three years of this plant producing not even a dozen strawberries each year, I told him that we weren’t going to be strawberry farmers. He now thinks the reason we don’t have a greater yield is because of the antics of squirrels. Doesn’t he know strawberries come from Safeway?
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