About 11 years ago, my wife and I were getting ready to put our first house up for sale. One of my projects was to paint the padio cover. I didn't know a squirrel had nested in the framework, and to put it mildly, she was not in favor of my painting project. I was wearing only a pair of shorts (hot day) and heard an awful sound behind me. I turned around to see one extremely angry momma squirrel who appeared ready to tear into me. I retreated. Fast. Subsequent attempts ended the same way.

I never was able to finish that paint job. When we sold the house, it had a big unpainted area extending out about 5 feet from the nest. I told the lady who bought the house that if she wanted to paint it, it was up to her. I wasn't going to mess with that momma squirrel from hell.

Funny thing is, I like squirrels. Some people call them tree rats but I enjoy watching them. When they're not pissed off, they actually play a lot and appear to have a sense of humor. They're also very clever. We used to feed them peanuts and they'd eat right out of our hands.

When the baby squirrel was born, Glo and I really wanted to see it but it stayed in the nest for weeks. Finally, we saw the momma and baby out in our back yard one day. By this time, the baby was already about half grown. Of course, momma was very protective. She snarled and snapped if we even tried to approach. Glo thought she could sweet talk the momma, one mother to another. It didn't work. When Glo retreated, the momma jumped around and appeared to be celebrating her victory. We never tried to get close to either of them again.