We’re in the middle of a serious heat wave. I’ve been being careful to keep the water outside filled up for the wildlife, amused and gratified at the finches’ tiny feet gripping the edges of the clear cup as they play bobblehead dolls, leaning way over to sip.
There’s nothing quite like making a small thing comfortable. They’ve been drinking a lot with the temps so high.
Last night, cooking dinner, I was surprised to see my favorite black squirrel with the red belly: usually he’s busy running around in the back yard. Just then, though, he had found me. In the kitchen. On the other side of the house. He was doing the monorail act, lying on the fence just outside the window there, legs splayed two to a side, tail stretched out casually with just a bit of a lilt near the end, trying to increase his surface space to cool down, I’d guess.
He’d found the perfect place to relax and people watch on a hot feels-like-summer evening.
I looked up, startled at first to see him right there right outside the window. What are you doing here?
Watching you cook dinner, was the answer: as I went back and forth from counter to drawer to other counter to fridge, chop cook rinse clean, he lifted his head and turned this way and that, that way and this again, steadily watching, watching as I went about my work, while the rest of him stayed splatted out, completely relaxed. Just hangin’ with my peeps.
I laughed.
He leaped up! Oh good! I made her laugh–that means I get a cashew! And he raced over the house to the backyard to where he knew I would put one out for him, his favorite, as a reward.
How could I resist that?