On yesterday's slog through the ravine, seeking out alternate trails to those we've become most familiar with over the past decades since they're now cut off from our access resulting from the removal of connecting bridges whose reappearance, we now understand, will be delayed until at least next spring, we were pursued by a number of our familiar little woodland acquaintances. Though they know full well where the usual cache places are where we deposit peanuts for them, some of the little creatures prefer to address us directly.
They're the ones we reward by the presentation of the largest peanuts in our daily collection. We're under no illusions that they evaluate the size and desirability of the peanuts they retrieve, although it's easy enough to do so by observing the elaborate convention they display for us, turning the peanuts in their shells over repeatedly in their clever little hands before finally making off with them. On the other hand, perhaps we're wrong, in not attributing to these small animals the ability to evaluate, since we're reluctant to attribute some form of reasoning to them, lest we be accused of equating their intelligence levels too close with that of humans and be guilty of charges of anthropomorphizing animals in the shadow of human attributes.
It always gives us great pleasure to see them. To see the trust they place in us. To see that they seem to recognize us, after prolonged exposure to our presence in their environment, and to understand however they arrive at that understanding, that we are habitually inclined to place out peanuts for their taking. It's our homage to the small animals who share the world with us, so to speak.
It all began when a small black squirrel first approached us enquiringly, coming very close to where we stood momentarily, descending the first long slope into the ravine, about fifteen years ago. I had a short while earlier noted the constant presence of a red squirrel on a protruding limb of the great pine that stood at the foot of the hill, and thought why not bring along a few peanuts and stick them in the crevices of the pine's rough bark?
Perhaps Stumpy, for that's what we named the small black squirrel without a tail, understood by observing us that we carried peanuts, or more likely smelled them around us and was bold enough to convey through his body language his expectation that he'd like some, too. A bond of recognition between us emerged, and from that time forward we would see him almost daily, often pursuing us through the wooded trails, seeking peanuts.
Our two little poodles at first would chase him, then becoming familiar with his pop-up presence, tended to simply ignore him and as for Stumpy, he might scramble off when Button or Riley took a run at him, but he would never go very far before impudently returning again, while our two companion dogs implied by their own body language that they would tolerate his brief presence.
Stumpy disappeared about three years ago, after we'd enjoyed years of mutual pleasure in one another's presence. Before he did, though, we became aware of the presence of yet another little stump-tailed black squirrel, in an entirely different area of the ravine, confusing it at first with Stumpy, only to realize that though this little fellow too behaved in a familiar manner soliciting peanuts, its actions were not quite as bold as Stumpy's. Our granddaughter named this one for us, as Stumpette, and from that time onward we always regarded her as Stumpy's female counterpart, though we never saw them together and their mutual tail-lessness was simply incidental.
Now, we've come to the conclusion that Stumpette too has finally passed on. We've been missing her presence for over a month. There's a note of sad loss there, because we miss them both, both with their own very idiosyncratic personalities.
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