A White Squirrel at today's inspection!

[Scottpat]

This was a white squirrel at today's inspection! It is not an albino, the owner of the home told me that they have been in the area for as long as he can recall, and he was pretty darn old! This was in Bowling Green, KY. I was in town doing an EIFS inspection and it just took me by surprise.

I have never seen a white squirrel. Sorry for the blurry pictures, I took them at 12X Zoom, the squirrel was about 75 yards away.

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[Robert Jones]

Wow,

First time for me seeing that as well. Can't bode well for the whole hiding out thing.

[AHI in AR]

Must be a rare Siberian Squirrel...

[Mark P]

Very Cool! Thanks for sharing!

[Jim Katen]

In the early French versions of the Cinderella story, her slippers were made from white squirrel fur (pantoufles en vair) but when Perrault moderized the story, the word "vair" was archaic and he confused it with "verre," which is a homophone but which means glass.

Just thought you'd like to know.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[kurt]

Well, I didn't know enough not to know, I guess, but I'm curiously satisfied that I have the answer regarding origin of the glass slipper metaphor. Or is it an analogy? Or, is it just a glass slipper, stumbled upon by a stray homophone?

Watch what you say, or the goons from Disney might pay a visit. We don't need no steenking original vision revisionist fairy tale telling.......

[Jim Katen]

Well, I didn't know enough not to know, I guess, but I'm curiously satisfied that I have the answer regarding origin of the glass slipper metaphor. Or is it an analogy? Or, is it just a glass slipper, stumbled upon by a stray homophone?

Watch what you say, or the goons from Disney might pay a visit. We don't need no steenking original vision revisionist fairy tale telling.......

The story is really hard to pin down because ancient versions of it have been found all over the world. Perrault's version was the first & only one in which the slipper was glass, though.

When my kids were little, I used to tell them a Pacific Northwest version of the story that I made up. It concerned an Indian girl who was harassed by her older siblings and who was always made to clean & scale the fish that the family caught. Then, when it was time to eat, she was only allowed to eat the fish heads. A lost moccasin figures prominently in the story and she triumphs in the end when her sisters are taken ill from eating bad fish.

Her name was Salmonella.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Scottpat]

Did she have a vengeful cousin named Montezuma?

[Erby]

Dang Tennessee hill billy sneaking into Kentucky, taking pictures of our white squirrels.

Probably doing an illegal home inspection in the guise of an EIFS inspection.

Which reminds me:

After their 11th child, a Tennessee couple decided that was enough as they could not afford a larger bed.

So the husband went to his veterinarian and told him that he and his cousin didn't want to have anymore children.

The doctor told him that there was a procedure called a vasectomy that could fix the problem but that it was expensive. "A less costly alternative," said the doctor, "is to go home, get a cherry bomb, (fireworks are legal in Tennessee) light it, put it in a beer can, then hold the can up to your ear and count to 10."

The hill billy said to the doctor, "I may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but I don't see how putting a cherry bomb in a beer can next to my ear is going to help me."

"Trust me," said the doctor.

So the man went home, lit a cherry bomb and put it in a beer can. He held the can up to his ear and began to count...

"1"

"2"

"3"

"4"

"5"

At which point he paused, placed the beer can between his legs and resumed counting on his other hand.

This procedure also works in Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and West Virginia.

-

[charlieb]

Even I chuckled at that one.

[John Kogel]

Thanks, Erby. So all the smarter ones blew their brains out? []

Thanks, Scott. We have white bears up the coast from us, but never heard of a white squirrel.

In fact, the American grey squirrel is a new settler on Vancouver Island. 20 years ago, we had smaller red squirrels. I remember thinking it was funny how Daniel Boone would go around hunting after a prey about the size of a rat. []

Anyway, somebody must have gotten a craving for grey squirrel meat here and brought some to our island. Now the only place you'll find a red squirrel is way up in the bush where the grey squirrels ain't been yet or on the smaller islands. It's like frontier days for squirrels, and here come the white eyes! []

Red squirrels would never squat in an attic and chew stuff up the way your grey varmints do. No wonder the pioneers went hunting for them.

I found this mess in a chimney a couple of weeks ago. Is this a squirrel nest?

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[Bill Kibbel]

Anyway, somebody must have gotten a craving for grey squirrel meat here and brought some to our island. Now the only place you'll find a red squirrel is way up in the bush where the grey squirrels ain't been yet or on the smaller islands. It's like frontier days for squirrels, and here come the white eyes! []

Might as well round up the remaining red squirrels and send 'em to a reservation. When I was in Wales, I found that the eastern gray squirrel had completely displaced the native red squirrels throughout much of the UK.

[Tom Raymond]

Red squirrels aren't housey? Interesting. They're rare around here but I've seen reds, there are a few blacks, and lots of greys. There is a ski resort community about 20 minutes from here where the most common problem rodent is the flying squirrel. They seem to love vented cathedral ceilings, and tear up the vents both top and bottom to get in. I've never seen so many flyers in one place.

The white is cool, never seen one of those.

[kurt]

They're all rats that live in trees.

[hausdok]

Red squirrels aren't housey? Interesting. They're rare around here but I've seen reds, there are a few blacks, and lots of greys. There is a ski resort community about 20 minutes from here where the most common problem rodent is the flying squirrel. They seem to love vented cathedral ceilings, and tear up the vents both top and bottom to get in. I've never seen so many flyers in one place.

The white is cool, never seen one of those.

Hi Tom,

That's interesting. When I was a kid in Dutchess County, New York I knew of a shed out in the woods where a bunch of flying squirrels nested and lived pretty much unmolested by anyone. When I told people about them folks all snickered and said, "You're an idiot; flying squirrels aren't native to this region and never have been, and there aren't any around here," and I was branded as a kid with too vivid an imagination.

I used to go out there and watch them. They weren't very afraid of me and would let me get really close. That shed was all dilapidated and was rotting out and falling down. I wonder what ever became of them without their secure nesting place?

Spent a couple of weeks one summer with the family camping up at Crown Point, New York on Lake Champlain; first on the New York Side and then at the DAR camp on the other side in Vermont. I remember that the DAR camp place was overrun with very loud and aggressive red squirrels. They were so much different from gray squirrels in temperament and habit that my brother and I spent a lot of time amusing ourselves by taunting them with treats and then taking them away at the last second that they'd actually become enraged and a mob of them would gather around us and threaten us. We thought it was hilarious.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Les]

http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/publications ... irrels.htm

check out the sixth para. Mike and his imagination!!

[Jim Morrison]

I've never seen a white squirrel, but I have seen black ones here in Boston.

I don't know much about squirrels in other parts of the country, but I can personally attest to an atticful of chewed up Romex courtesy of a couple of red squirrels of my 1850 farmhouse in Lancaster, MA.

Those little bastards are acrobats! I never did figure out how they got in there.

Great photo, Scott!

[hausdok]

I can personally attest to an atticful of chewed up Romex courtesy of a couple of red squirrels

Yeah,

In 1981, when I was running the MPI Office on Ft. Devens in Ayer, MA, a bunch of squirrels that were nesting in the attic of that then almost 70-year old building gnawed through the wiring in the attic of the Provost Marshal's Office and somehow started a fire that gutted the building. Coated everything in my evidence room with a thick sticky layer of soot. As NCOIC of investigations, I had the unfortunate extra duty of also being evidence custodian; what a friggin pain-in-the-ass that was to explain at trials.

Just 'cuz a couple of squirrels got...well....squirrely.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[hausdok]

http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/landowners_guide/species_mgmt/Squirrels.htm

check out the sixth para. Mike and his imagination!!

Yeah, my imagination dreamed up little dark gray almost black critters with extra huge eyes, a white underbelly, short hair and a flap of skin connecting their legs. Whenever I'd enter that shed, some of them would choose to scoot outside and would go up the nearest tree and then do the leap and glide thing to other trees.

I can understand why they'd be out only at night. They're pretty small for a squirrel and would be very vulnerable to a hawk outside during the day. I'm sure that they're just as vulnerable to owls at night.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[John Dirks Jr]

The last time I saw white squirrels was in Washington DC. They were running around in the National Zoo. Not captive but wild. There were black ones too. I asked the keeper about them and she said they were not that rare.

We caught a sick squirrel in my yard once. We took it to a wildlife refuge so they could try and nurse it back to health. A month and a half later the guy pulls up in the driveway. He wanted to release the now healthy squirrel. He said they stay local and since this one was cought here, he wanted to release it here.

After he released it we watched. After a while, other squirrels in the yard came out. They began to run around having squirrel fun. "hey dude...where the heck have you been"? seemed to be the theme.

[hausdok]

Hi All,

Speaking of squirrels, I thought you'd all appreciate these. Something tells me that a realtor did something to piss off the cartoonist:

http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/341593.full.gif" border="0" alt="Rose Is Rose" />

http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/341594.full.gif" border="0" alt="Rose Is Rose" />

http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/341595.full.gif" border="0" alt="Rose Is Rose" />

http://c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/dyn/str_strip/341596.full.gif" border="0" alt="Rose Is Rose" />

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Chad Fabry]

We caught a sick squirrel in my yard once.

I catch squirrels all the time. It's easiest after I put a 1/4" diameter hole through their head. I have found though, that all their playfulness leaks out after the hole is poked through.

[kurt]

You eat 'em?

[Chad Fabry]

You eat 'em?

Nope, I stop them from gnawing holes through my house. Actually, I only shoot the red ones; they're pernicious and too small to bother frying.

[hausdok]

Huh,

Can't figure out what happened with my previous post. Those are supposed to be embedded images but all I'm seeing is the code. Is anyone actually seeing the comic strips or is everyone now seeing the code?

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike