Our friend Pat describes early spring as silly season for squirrels. They’re so intent on finding food to eat that they make poor decisions with respect to crossing roads in front of cars, leading to a sudden increase in squirrel corpses in the streets. In my opinion, squirrels have a second silly season in the fall. During the one going on now, squirrels make poor decisions with respect to people.
Normally, squirrels regard humans as minor annoyances. We should generally be avoided, but as we’re slow and don’t usually climb trees, we are a minor inconvenience. Most of the year, if a person makes eye contact with a squirrel, the critter may move out of sight around the back side of its tree trunk, or climb a bit higher, or occasionally climb a bit higher and scold you for being a bother.
Do not make eye contact with squirrels during the autumn silly season. They will wonder if you have food for them. And come down from their trees to find out. Cute though you may consider squirrels, it is important to remember that they are wild animals with teeth that can bite through walnuts. And into fingers. Just ask my sweetheart’s friend Tim, an otherwise sensible farm boy beguiled by a fluffy-tailed rodent on the Diag one fall. No eye contact during silly season.
We’ve had our first snow this year and, with it, our first ice. The ice appeared initially in flat, one-inch sections sliding down the car’s windshield on a rainy day a few weeks ago when the ground temperature was well above freezing. This week, ice clings to the surface on ponds in the mornings, looking like so much plastic wrap—transparent and wrinkly.
The sun melts it away as the day goes on. A great blue heron hunkered down on a fallen branch at the edge of Thurston Pond, as the dog and I walked by this Tuesday. Neck pulled in, shoulders hunched, and feathers fluffed, it waited for fishing conditions to improve, and did not fly off as we passed.
Other ice formed as perfectly clear spheres on the tops of fallen leaves. The tiny clearies were easiest to see on yellow maple leaves, but they were everywhere, gazillions of them. The merest breath or ungloved touch melted the smallest ones, which were visible and not much more. The largest ones were about a quarter-of-an-inch across and tended to crunch rather than melt. They crunched quite delightfully underfoot in fact, which is how I first noticed them. If Rascal noticed them, he didn’t say. But then, they didn’t crunch under his paws.
The snow was packing snow, and lingered on the ground for a couple days. After that, what remained took the form of snowmen or other structures. On the grounds of the middle school, a fort was the only thing left standing, without so much as a single snowball to use as ammo.
The leaves of gingko trees around the neighborhood came down this week. It’s quite the event: one day, they’re all still on the tree, and the next day they all come down. Areas of sidewalk are ankle-deep in gingko leaves. Although the color of the leaves varies from tree to tree, it doesn’t vary much. Some piles are golden, In others, the gold is slightly green. Within each pile, and from tree to tree, the leaves are remarkably same in size and shape, a sort of gingko repetend.
Yesterday, I drove a friend to a 10:30 AM appointment to have her eyes examined. We arrived at the Kellogg Eye Center in timely fashion, only to be told we were in the wrong place. Appointments had been moved to their branch location forty minutes away. Hadn’t she gotten an email?
My friend checked her phone. Sure enough, she’d just gotten a message to that effect. Not that she could read it, as she’s experiencing double vision. Hence, the appointment. The woman behind the counter said that we were the fourth set of folks to show up in the wrong place that morning. Huh.
She said she’d call ahead for us, and we set off for the neighboring town and a street neither one of us area natives had ever heard of before. We got there late, of course, but after closed-door discussion, the folks at the counter said they could work my friend into their schedule if we were willing to wait an hour or hour and a half. For some reason, they said, they were running seriously behind schedule that day. Huh. That’s some coincidence.
Silly season may be affecting more than squirrels.
14 November 2025