The Big Bad Squirrel

During these covid times there wasn”t much to do, everyday was a new challenge as figurer out how to fill the void and boringness of lockdown. Previously, we had free will and could do anything but this time was different, no one was allowed to do the simple things: School, work, church and just hanging out. Covid was a scary time and people just stayed away from each other. There were long, lonely boring days. I am a 13 year old boy who was looking for something to do. I was going stir crazy and driving my mother nuts. I was tired to being by myself. My friend, Lukas, who was known to be a little bit rebellious was also feeling couped up and antsy made a decision to stop follow the lock down procedures. We lived less then a mile away. So we would frequently hangout with each other. We would run around in the woods and go fishing. Lukas has been my friend for a really long time. He is a nice kid, who is funny and always up for an adventure. We both grew up with Dads and grandfathers that hunted every year. We were very schooled in safety with our BB and pellet guns. The fall season was approaching and in anticipation of the 2020 deer season, We had the incredible itch to go hunting. Lukas and I shared a love of squirrel hunting and it was open season. On this particular afternoon, I called Lukas and invited him over to my house. He was quick to hop on his bike and race over. We were having a blast running through the woods when we decided to grab our .177 caliper highpowered pellet guns. The squrriels were out everywhere- prime for the picking. When I ran across my street back home to fetch something to drink, I caught a glimse of the fattest squirrel I have ever seen in my life in my yard. It taunted me and I had no self control. I hollared for Lukas and together we chased the squirrel to a safe spot away from our nieghbors house in the trees and we took our shots. It was quick and painless. We were successful and super excited to finally get one. We proudly headed back to my house with our squirrel trophy in hand boasting and reliving our kill. Unbeknownst to us, we were being watched by our longtime nieghbor and friend.

Moments later, while we were standing in my driveway with the squirrel we were so proudly admiring and talking about where and how to fry it up, my neighbor flew down the road and swung into my driveway. She was visibly upset and sadly began to explain to us that she purposely feeds the squirrels for entertainment and the one we shot happened to be one of them that visits her regularly. I was shocked and immediately very apologetic. Lukas and I spent several moments trying to make the situation right. After seeing how upset my neighbor was, I realized quickly that we can no longer hunt squirrels at my house due to the fact that my nieghbor feed them like pets. The decision was instantly made to never hunt the squirrels in the backyard no matter how tempting it would be. This would be the one and only time I hunted squirrel.

The hard lesson learned this day was that even though this was an innocent adventure, we didn’t take into consideration how this would impact anyone other than the squirrel. We need to be respectful to our community and shouldn’t have hunted super close to neighbors and we needed to be considerate to what we are doing and where we are doing it. Our adventures should not cause sadness or issues in our neighborhood. Days later after this exciting yet disappointing adventure, our neighbor drove by and stopped to say hi. She had forgiven us and understood that we were only trying to have fun. She asked what we did with the squirrel and I told her about our adventure frying it up and eating squirrel for the first and last time. She laughed and carried about her travels.

“Squirrel” by Airwolfhound is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.