This morning I heard a crashing noise and went to the window to investigate. The pumpkin (which we never made the time to carve) had been knocked off of our deck. The culprit? The largest squirrel I have ever seen.

This squirrel was not just large in size, but also in girth. It tried running away as soon as it noticed us, but it only managed a waddle. It was very obviously trying to run as fast as it could, and very obviously failing. We got to get a good look at it.

Some squirrels can have large tails, which will sometimes make them appear larger than they really are. This squirrel was certainly one with a large tail. However, there was no denying that this squirrel was extremely overweight. I can not help but wonder how it has managed to stay alive this long. I suppose that it is ready to hibernate for the winter, but watching it run does not make me believe that it has any chance of escaping predators.

I really need to start keeping my camera closer to hand.

There was a cacophony across the water while my wife was out in the hammock this afternoon. I thought that it was a bird, but she thought it was a small animal. We could not see what it was, but it turns out that she was right. It was a baby squirrel.

I went out with my camera and tried to track it through the trees. I finally caught sight of it, and managed to get one picture where you could actually tell what it was. The rest of the pictures it had managed to duck behind a tree or out of frame, or else there was too much camera shake to see anything other than a small brown blur.

It was making a lot of noise for quite some time. The squirrel never really stopped to take a breath; it just kept squeeking away for about 20 minutes.