I’ve been told that, when it comes to dieting and cutting back on meals, my specimen collection works better than the best diet pills out there. Apparently there’s something about seeing critters preserved in jars (or paperweights) that makes folks loose their appetites. It doesn’t have that affect on me, but then again, I’ve always been weird.

I first started my specimen collection back in high school, my anatomy teacher had us dissect all sorts of interesting creatures and then, if we could remove certain parts of the specimen’s anatomy correctly and intact, he taught us how to preserve it so we could keep it. That was the big excitement and “goal” for us when we dissected a fetal pig for our final. Getting the brain out whole. After that it sort of grew from there. What kind of different creatures could I find and what species? Could I preserve them as well? I have an impressive collection of arachnids, reptiles, and amphibians. Today though I got a critter I never thought I’d add to the collection:

Denali caught a squirrel today and I was loathe to let her try to finish it off. It was fairly young and it’s parents were nearby and very upset she had stolen their young. How she got it remains a mystery. If it wasn’t for the fact that my mother’s dog, Big Mama, was looking out for, I think Denali would have been in serious trouble. She was so focused on catching, playing, then re-catching the young squirrel that she never noticed how angry some of the adult squirrels were. Luckily for her, in order to get to her they had to get past Big Mama and they couldn’t manage that.

We’ve had a very difficult time getting rid of these squirrels too. They’ve built a rather complex system of tunnels under the storage sheds and have entrances scattered about. There are some tunnel openings along the concrete ditch at the back of our property, about 20 feet from the storage sheds, exits along the irrigation canal on another side, another good fifteen to twenty feet away as well. In short, it makes removing them very difficult since, if you fumigate, you can’t get all of their nesting grounds. And to cut back on their breeding you have to alter their habitat and remove what sustains them. Kind of hard to do with ten pecan trees, a pistachio, and multiple fruit trees scattered around the yard.

It’s really weird too, we’ve always had squirrels, but never did we have such an…infestation before. I can’t even pin down exactly when they all moved in. You might see an occasional one before, but for the past couple of years, you can see multiple squirrels running around and they’re not that afraid of us either. The dogs, yes. Us humans, sort of, but only when we have something to throw or are attempting to get rid of them again. To top it off, these guys are mean too. I really wish Denali wold have never tried to tangle with one.

As such, I really didn’t want to let the little bugger go. Nor did I want to let Denali continue playing with it. These things are rather mean and Denali was pretty lucky she didn’t get bitten or clawed as it was. While I was outside to see what the commotion was, Denali almost got her eyes clawed out twice. Cat has a lot of luck. With no real alternative, the squirrel got added to the collection:

He’s now sitting on my desk and awaiting classification and recording.