When I was filling up the bag I carry along with us when we have our ravine walks, I peered into the large tin container that houses them to see a few tiny white larvae in among the peanuts.  These were the peanuts that were at the bottom of the last fifty-pound bag we had bought.  These were second-rate peanuts.  They were industrial-grade in the sense that they were not inspected for human consumption nor meant for that purpose.  They were meant to feed wildlife, and that's what we used them for.

But never before had we come away with tiny, stunted peanuts which had been infested with moths.  We'd had to take that large bag out into one of our backyard garden sheds for storage, and fill up that tin container from there, to ensure we would get no moth infestation in the house, in the kitchen cupboards particuolarly. 

We decided we would go elsewhere in future to stock up on peanuts.  A few places my husband called admitted they too had a problem with moths.  We'd paid a premium price for that last bag; 15% higher than the last, excellent bag we'd procured from the same dealer.

This time we went in a different geographic direction; south-west of the city, to another small rural town where on enquiry we were informed there was one intact 50-lb bag left in their inventory and we could come along and pick it up.  It was priced 15% lower than what we last paid, and the peanuts were a far more generous size.  Moreover, they were packed in a polypropylene tight-weave fabric, unlike the wide-mesh plastic that the infested peanuts were packed into.

It was a lovely drive to get there, the sky a mix of sun and cloud.  Beside the highway in a relatively short stretch we saw some distance apart from one another no fewer than three red-tailed hawks sitting in trees.  There were frequent bursts of Canada geese rising from plowed fields, heading over toward the Ottawa River.  And we had achieved our mission to re-stock with peanuts to offer to our grey, black and red squirrel population in the ravine.

We'd feel stricken with guilt if we entered there without ample peanut offerings for the many who search out the usual cache-spots daily, and even more so because of the number of truly bold and trusting ones that rush over when they see us, eagerly dancing before us in their anxiety to fulfill their fall mission of acquiring a store of over-wintering sustenance.