More Squirrels

My friend Rose sent me a bag of somewhat over the hill pistachio nuts in the shell for the tiny Douglas squirrel whose name, I have intuited, is Rufus.  I put a dozen of them out in a bowl on the porch in the early morning and a cup of sunflower seeds nearby on a plate.

Now that Rufus is here daily, Zoe the cat spends all her day watching him through the french doors.  I know he's shown up for work when her tail starts to twitch.  And when I went to look, there was Rufus sitting next to the bowl of sunflower seeds, eating happily away, whereas the pistachio nuts were being exported under her eyes by two large black squirrels to their places in the back yard.  To each his own.

Maybe the pistachios were too big for Rufus?  Except that he does keep fir cones in with his collection of sunflower seeds kept in Ed's shoe.  But we've had two days when he didn't give the pistachios a glance, so I have to conclude, I think, that they are not to his taste.  Zoe, after all, does not like poached chicken breast but will happily eat roast chicken breast.

I hate to discover that non-human animals are as hard to figure out as people.  Especially now that I am in my declining years.  Some ideas ought to be sacred.