Squirrels

Fall decorations are everywhere.
The beginning of October is fall decorating time at our house.
I go to a local barn and buy cornstalks, pumpkins, and anything else that is needed.
I used to get a bale of hay but have not gotten one of those for years.

This local barn has handmade items as well.
I have purchased two wooden pumpkins, one quite large and a smaller one.
I have a wooden fence that says, Welcome, and has both a crow and a pumpkin on it.
I also have a scarecrow that our youngest daughter named, Patches, when she was little.

My fall decorations are placed near our front door.
Our second door, that leads to the laundry room, has a long wooden sign.
The sign is really the face of a pumpkin, wearing a hat, with straw peeking out.
The same items are put in the same place each year.

I have another annoyance much like the walnuts and debris falling from my walnut tree.
This annoyance, particularly this time of year, are the squirrels.
The squirrels discovered that there were ears of corn on the cornstalk.
That corn was a ready meal for the squirrels.

I understand that animals have to eat.
I understand that corn is appealing to many animals.
But…eating my decorations!
They are eating things so close to my front door that they can easily run inside!

If the squirrels just ate the corn, it wouldn’t be so annoying.
However, as they try to get at the corn on the cornstalk, they knock over every decoration.
Down goes the scarecrow; down goes the fence.
Down goes the smaller wooden pumpkin, as everything lays against one of my rocking chairs.

I actually heard everything falling as I was in bed last night.
I wasn’t scared because I knew what was making the noise.
I was too sleepy to be angry.
However, I was awake enough to be annoyed.

When I went out for my walk, I looked over to the front door.
There they lay.
The scarecrow, the fence, the wooden pumpkin all lay on their side.
The only thing still standing was the cornstalk.

Unbelievable!
These are the same squirrels who bury walnuts in my mulch.
These are the same squirrels who crack open the walnuts on my porch furniture.
I find hard walnuts in the slats of the porch swing.

They have to eat, my husband said, seemingly nonplussed about the squirrels’ feast.
They don’t have to eat here, I said, realizing how it sounded.
I would never be cruel to animals; I would never begrudge them food.
But can’t they leave the decorative cornstalk alone?

We should have pulled the ears of corn off the stalk, my husband finally said.
I guess we know for next year.
The corn is now completely eaten, so why are the squirrels still coming back?
The next thing they will nibble on are the pumpkins themselves.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Matthew 6:25-27)

My annoyance abated.
God feeds the birds of the air.
The birds do not have to sow, or reap, or store away in barns, but they are fed by the Father.
God feeds the squirrels with my walnuts and the corn on my cornstalk.

How can I complain?
He cares for me the same way.