Peanut, Notchtail, and Lily brought their two babies to meet us this week. They are nearly full-grown. The undersides of their tails are a darker red than the other squirrels, their tails are smaller and beautiful, and their bodies are sleek. They don't have any battle wounds yet and they don't appear to have deformities like Notchtail and Lily whose tails are missing a lot of hair, and Humpback. (We haven't seen Humpback all summer . . . he may have been the one smashed in the CVS parking lot.)

The babies, Nutter and Butter, are very lively. The way they hop around is very quick and light and silly compared to their elders. They talk a lot and they fight over the nuts we give them. They immediately wanted to befriend us, but are too nervous. They jump away at the slightest sound or movement. Nutter jumped up and banged his head under MK's sliding board. It was cute.

The oddest thing happened. I found a pile of grass clippings on the yard bench where we leave nuts for the squirrels. I asked MK if she had put it there. She said no, she hadn't. We are wondering if the squirrels put it there to hide their nuts . . . they usually hide the nuts in the ground nearby . . . or maybe they were making a nest of some sort . . . it is just so odd. We keep putting the nuts there and they seem happy with that.