The Watering Bowl

So one day we got home from work, and there, chilling out on our deck was this squirrel. It was kind of a tiny little squirrel, and it was sprawled out on our deck, for some reason directly under the metal bar of the railing. It's little heart was just beating as hard as could be, and it just seemed the the heat had sort of had an effect.

A black metal railing... cooler than being in the Texas sun

We sat and watched him for awhile and he soon ran away. Since we are in a pretty horrible drought in the state of Texas, we figured that we wanted to try and help him. So we put a bowl of water out on our deck. We didn't really notice any difference in the behavior around our deck, but one day, after a long arduous day of work... ok it was normal :P, we got home and there was the squirrel, drinking out of the bowl!!

Mission Accomplished!

I asked Jacob what we should name it, and he came up with Skippy. I thought this was a little bit silly, but since I asked him, well.... I had to stick with the name. Also there is actually a Skippy the squirrel from animaniacs, and as I am writing this Jacob claims that he knew that... although at the time there was certainly no mention of that. Anyway, we stuck with the name Skippy and now it is always a happy occasion when Skippy visits us. He still sprawls out under the railing... but at least now he is hydrated better!

I am not entirely sure that every squirrel we see is Skippy.... but it is funner assuming that it is. We have at times put some nuts next to the water and they always disappear, but we aren't positive what is actually eating them. It could be ants, or maybe skippy is actually enjoying them.

After a while, we started to see more wildlife, so Skippy must have told his friends that our deck was safe (at least it is funner to think of it this way). Our first other visitor was a rabbit. I had the honor of naming it this time and went with Clover. I am not sure why.... it seems rabbity. Clover occasionally comes by with another rabbit, which is cool I suppose. They have never gotten to the bowl as far as I have seen, but maybe when we aren't around.

Clover eating... not clover

We have also seen more birds around our deck. Below there is a picture of a cardinal, and recently there have been these tiny little birds that have been bathing themselves in the water. I feel kind of bad for Skippy since his water bowl might get dirty because of that.... but he seems to not really care.

Jacob and I were the ones who started the whole thing, but even Andy got into it and when his mom was here she asked why we had a bowl on the deck and he was worried she had moved it and that Skippy wouldn't have it anymore. Also the last words he said to me before he left were "Take care of Skippy for us!"

Update: This morning I put out some nuts for Skippy. Soon he hopped up and grabbed them and then took them and buried them, then came back for more. Here is video of one of is trips. After he was all done he had a nice long drink, then rolled around with a stick.