"Here, Swirl"

"Here, swirl. Come down, swirl."

At the park today, there was the friendliest (or the most daring) squirrel I've ever seen and we have a yard full of them.  That's especially true when our bird feeder is full. We've had to move the bird feeder several times because the squirrels crawl across the branches and steal the bird seed. We thought we solved the problem by hanging a plastic disc a few inches over the feeder and then hanging the feeder on a weaker branch. It took a few days, but the squirrels came up a system. They were able to climb out to the feeder, jump on the disc and then quickly jump onto the feeder. Since the branch is weak, only one squirrel can hop on so he (or she) is tasked with dropping the bird seed down to the squirrels on the ground below. It's pretty amusing to watch. But since we don't want to be outsmarted by squirrels, we hardly fill the feeder anymore.

Today's clever squirrel must make the park his home because he came right up to us when the kids broke out their goldfish, freeze-dried pineapple, and granola bars. When Maya and her friends spotted they squirrel, they were giddy. Somone dropped a goldfish. The squirrel waited a minute and then stretched out his paws, snatched it and ran off, but not for long. He was back waiting for his next morsel to fall. He was so entertaining to the kids that before we knew it, the kids were chasing him around the park and through the playscape, before he escaped to a tree. He liked the game though because he stopped about a quarter of the way up the tree while the kids called "Here, Swirl." They lost interest after a few minutes and went back to playing on their own until the squirrel came back for another round and the chase was on again. 

Maya had so much fun that when I gave her the five minute warning to go home, she stopped me with this: "No, 10 minutes, mommy."