Are the squirrels on your lawn fat or lean?

[CTyankee]

If they're tubby that means we're in for a cold long winter. If just regular sized then a mild winter is in store...

Or at least that is the story around here. How about you?

[Funtatlaguy]

1. Please don't fat shame the squirrels 🐿.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

2. Ha! 🌰🌰🥜

[CTyankee]

3. No way! Squirrels are our friends!

[skylucy]

29. LOL!

[hlthe2b]

4. Pudgy... A record acorn crop this year.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Squirrels in my neighborhood are fat and happy.

The pecans are dropping and there are plenty of them from the eight mature trees in a two block area.

[CTyankee]

7. That's supposed to mean a cold winter here in CT.

Is it the same there in Arkansas?

[Arkansas Granny]

13. I've always heard that you go by how thick their fur is. Although, unless you hunt squirrels,

I don't know how you're supposed to tell that.

[Shrike47]

51. Squirrelly pets?

[Arkansas Granny]

60. I have no actual 4 legged squirrelly pets, just a few friends that some might consider squirrelly.

Even if they had fur, I'm not sure how to check their fur or if they would even let me.

[Sneederbunk]

6. I have no squirrels. Did they go to Arizona?

[brewens]

8. I watched the Boone and Crockett red squirrel in my yard the other day. He's been

eatin' well. About the biggest one I've ever seen.

[Polly Hennessey]

9. No squirrels for me.

My barking dogs seem to annoy them. Hoping this means a middle-of-road winter. 😉

[BigMin28]

10. The squirrels in my yard are fat

They've stolen all the pecans off the pecan tree even before they dropped.

[DinahMoeHum]

11. FAT. My mother's home has several oak trees in the back yard . .

Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2019, 10:38 PM - Edit history (1)

. . .and a few weeks ago I was there to help clear out broken branches and twigs fallen from recent high winds. Many of those branches had clumps of acorns. The squirrels have been having a feast out there.

[CentralMass]

12. When i first arrived in Oregon I went out onto the balcony of the apt

that I am renting and saw a big reddish squirrel on its hind legs holding and munching on an apple. I learned that my downstairs neighbor puts them (apples) out for them.

[Marthe48]

14. My squirrels are chubby

but I feed the critters year round, lighter in the summer. I started feeding more often and had 5 squirrels recently. Down to 2 young ones who who look forward to my restocks.

I think the woolly worms are the best indicator. All black means a harsh winter, brown and black mixed means normal, mostly brown means mild. The one I saw was mostly brown.


I never heard the lore about squirrels, thanks!

[CTyankee]

19. Where do you put their feed?

We just have a small lawn and some bushes in front of the house. Pretty standard stuff. I tried planting things, sweated bullets doing it and...everything died. So I said "Screw that!"
but for some reason my daughter is a genius at landscaping. She has started her own business designing landscapes. Where she got that talent I do not know...

[Marthe48]

22. I have bird feeders

I've got about 1/3 acre, with large sweet gum and maple trees, some ornamental crab apple trees, a redbud, and shrubs. I hang the feeders as high as I can reach, because the deer will empty them. I stopped filling them in the summer because the chipmunks empty them. I have a mulched area that is pretty bare, and it is under the trees, so I put most of the seed there. I put a little in a box on one of the trees, but right now, I am making sure the youngest squirrels know how to forage, don't want to make it too easy for them and the chipmunks have to work a little harder to fill their stores for the winter.

Our older neighborhood is at the edge of town, so still a little undeveloped land, and lots of trees new homeowners planted in the 1950s-60s. We planted the redbud, a lilac and a ornamental cherry tree, but most of our landscape was in place when we bought this home 30 years ago. Your daughter is very lucky to have a green thumb. Maybe she can help you find plants that are hardier in your area.

[woodsprite]

15. In northern DE, chubby squirrels and HUGE acorns.

That goes against the wooly bear I saw last week though. He was mainly rusty brown with just the front/back tips of his body being black.

[Marthe48]

24. It is going to be hard to judge

Spring and Fall are already full of shifting weather, and I think the daily or weekly changes are getting more extreme. Last week, it was 60 degrees, the next day 21 with snow. The cold weather stayed for a few days, and now it'll be back up to mid-40s for several days. We might have great weather for the animals to get ready for winter, and then have a mild winter, or else the opposite. Really hard for humans to adjust, the critters probably just going along as usual and getting really taken by surprise.

[woodsprite]

27. My grandparents always said that was bad flu weather. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. They look kind of round, but I don't know if it's fat or fur.

It's been cold here lately and they're probably fluffing up to stay warm.

[CTyankee]

17. Makes sense. Put on some weight and warmth to get them through a tough, cold winter...

[Beringia]

18. Squirrels need 140 calories a day or 1/6 cup of shelled sunflower seeds

I did the math.

[Major Nikon]

20. I'm more interested to know where a tree rat is going to find shelled sunflower seeds

[sl8]

21. Dollar store, most likely.

Seem to be everywhere these days.

[Beringia]

23. Tree rat? Gross

[Marthe48]

26. I offer unshelled sunflowers

and they do the work I love watching the nuthatches and other birds wedge the seeds into the tree bark and pound them open. Smarties.

[Marthe48]

25. Interesting

I always wonder if I feed them too much, or if they stop when they get enough.

[Beringia]

28. Someone made a joke before about this

saying if you ask a squirrel how much do you want, the squirrel will say how much do you got

I think they can get fat.

I have parakeets I feed as much as they want, and they don't get fat. Interesting question, if wild animals could get fat if they were able to. Overeat. There must be a detriment to overeating, just like with humans.

[Marthe48]

30. The chipmunks would ask for more

I do love seeing them stuff their cheeks full. And they are fearless. The year my husband was sick, we'd sit in the yard, near one of the feeders. A couple of young squirrels would come to the feeder, but there was a chipmunk who came right up by our feet. We started putting seeds down where we were sitting and got pictures of the chipmunk between John's feet. It was entertaining.

[Beringia]

31. I love chipmunks too

When I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, I saw them everywhere.

I made some from socks and made a painting too.

[Marthe48]

46. Oh, so cute

and a lovely ode to the chipmunks.

[Beringia]

48. Thanks

[mainer]

32. They're fat because they keep raiding my bird feeder

I can't find a way to keep them off it.

[Dagstead Bumwood]

33. Had the same problem with a furry thief in our backyard.

Which would piss me off, which the wife found funny. "You bought that thing to feeds animals, so what difference does it make which animal you end up feeding?" I found no solace in that, frankly.

I tried not one but two different weight-sensitive feeders, the ones that are supposed to close when a squirrel climbs on it. One didn't work at all and the second one did only to an extent. They still were able to feed themselves and rob the birds, but it took them a little longer. Guess we have patient squirrels, the little bastards.

[CTyankee]

34. When I was tutoring ESL to Chinese students, one asked me if it was legal in our city to shoot

a squirrel. It was clear to me that in her culture squirrels were considered a form of vermin, to be eradicated. I told her the problem would likely more be her possession of a firearm than shooting a squirrel...

[Dagstead Bumwood]

35. Fortunately, I do not think of squirrels as vermin.

Nor have I taken any steps to eradicate them. Pounding on the window and swearing at them like a longshoreman seems sufficiently cathartic for me

[CTyankee]

36. Perhaps they alarm the Chinese, much like a rat would alarm us...

[smirkymonkey]

37. Does she actually shoot them or was she asking a rhetorical question?

Because even if it is legal in certain places to shoot them, it's still very cruel. Why would someone do that? They are so cute and basically harmless. And a person with a gun is much more of a threat than a sweet little squirrel.

[CTyankee]

38. I didn't feel it was my place as a tutor to make a judgment on her culture, so I didn't ask.

I did say that I didn't know of anyone here who would shoot a squirrel.

I had another Chinese student who was kind of indignant over our phrase "holy shit." She demanded to know how it was possible for something to be holy and also be shit. I really couldn't answer that question. Tell me if you can cuz it puzzles me to this day.

[sl8]

44. Regarding "holy shit" ...

Would this help or hinder?

How about this?

From https://www.etymonline.com/word/holy

[..]

Holy has been used as an intensifying word from 1837; in expletives since 1880s (such as holy smoke, 1883, holy mackerel, 1876, holy cow, 1914, holy moly etc.), most of them euphemisms for holy Christ or holy Moses. Holy Ghost was in Old English (in Middle English often written as one word). Holy League is used of various European alliances; the Holy Alliance was that formed personally by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1815; it ended in 1830.

[...]

[CTyankee]

49. i would say that "holy" has been used as a magnifier of intensity when you use the word it modifies.

Geez, I just wrote a really crazy sentence. I kinda get it. But it can be used as a word of wonderment...in this case, wonderment that there could be that much shit.

I feel better now...

[SWBTATTReg]

58. Not 100% harmless. They do eat / chew on cedar wood products if you have on your house, and...

chew on other stuff too, I've had one chew into my roof line, making a hole and getting into the roof area of my house, we had to call exterminators to extract (they took the captured squirrel over to Tower Grove Park and released them (at least that's what they said). Critters are cute until something like this happens. Another critter chewed on electrical wiring in my folks' house, causing a fire (per fire marshal).

[Skittles]

40. in America, a bushy tail exonerates an animal from vermin status

yes INDEED

[CTyankee]

41. seems to be...

[sl8]

45. True. Chickens, cows and pigs need to get busy evolving cuter, bushier tails. n/t

[Skittles]

39. certainly my squirrel "Chubby" is not a good indicator

I park near a tree and one day on my way to work I tossed him a peanut. Now he comes down from the tree daily for his peanut, and is audibly annoyed if I don't have one.

[Marthe48]

47. My daughter feeds the squirrels in her yard

she gets up the same time every day and if she doesn't toss a handful of peanuts out, they are at her deck door looking in. I've seen them when I visit her and there can be up to 5 right at the door, or on the rail. As soon as she comes out, they move away. I think I've counted up to 11 in her yard at one time.

I absolutely love this discussion by the way.

[sarge43]

42. Our squirrels are always fat and our winters always cold and long. Central NH n/t

[Yavin4]

43. In NYC, they eat pizza

[CTyankee]

50. the title of this post sounds like the title of a surrealist work by a new artist on display

at the MoMA in New York...

[Doreen]

52. My squirrels are fat

all year long.

[sl8]

56. But are your squirrels phat? n/t

[SWBTATTReg]

53. Well, I don't look closely at the squirrels ... usually I shout to my 3 dogs 'SQUIRREL!' and the ...

dogs go crazy and run like mad to 'catch/chase/bark/etc.' at the squirrel, out the back door, and of course, always fail to catch them. It's a form of exercise I like to use for my dogs, it's too hard to walk (and its more fun) 3 of them at the same time (my feet wouldn't be even touching the ground!).

What's I've noticed is that there are lots of squirrels, none too big really. Just plentiful numbers. Thus, mild winter indeed. We've finally just got our below freezing temps here in STLMO a couple of weeks or so ago.

Got to run, it's squirrel chasing time! Have a good one.

[dawg day]

54. Mine are very tubby from having dug up and eat all the tulip bulbs I planted.

The squirrels look so triumphant and proud when they find another one. It's so annoying... there are oak trees all around, and thousands of acorns right on the ground, but they dig in my flower beds.

[get the red out]

55. Mine look pretty healthy!

Of course we have acorns all over the yard.

Squirrel size weather predictions sound better than our local prediction that is based on the color pattern of “woolly worms” though.

[jberryhill]

57. The one on my deck looks like this...

Link to tweet

[lark]

59. Well I guess we will have another climate change type of winter - which means almost not at all.

I live in No. FL. and have a ton of oak trees, so many squirrels live on our property. They look healthy, but definitely not fat and more lean. Based on this, looks like we will have another "winter" of almost no freezing weather. When I was young, even as a young adult, the weather here averaged 13 frost days, last year we had 4 and 2 years ago also 4. Our azaleas which are supposed to bloom the first of March, end of Feb. at the earliest were blooming at Christmas that year.

[keithbvadu2]

61. Be sure to have enough firewood on hand

One year, a young Ojibwe boy was given the task of ensuring the entire village had enough wood for winter. This was the first time he had been given such an honor and he wanted to do it right. Before he went to work he decided to call the weatherman to ask what kind of a winter was to be expected. The weather man told him it was going to be a warm and uneventful winter. The boy thought to himself, ‘this is great. I won’t have to work too hard and I’ll be able to look good in front of the whole tribe.’

Just to be safe, he gathered a few of his friends and they went to work for a week. At the end of the week, after chopping and piling the wood, the boy decided to give the weatherman a second call. The weatherman told him it was going to be a very cold winter. Shocked at this sudden change and not wanting to disappoint the elders of his village, he gathered more of his friends and they went to work. For two weeks they cut and piled wood, hoping that it would be enough to last the whole winter.

Once again the boy called the weatherman and this time the weatherman told him, “Son, its going to be a very bitter, cold and long winter. Maybe the worst winter on record.”

Exasperated, the boy had to ask, “What makes you say that sir?”

The weatherman replies, “The Indians are gathering wood like crazy!”