You Try To Scale A 30-Foot Oak With Testicles The Size Of Your Head

The backyard at Kawama sits underneath an oak branch canopy from a tree next door. The thing, I was told, is about 30 years old. Today it encroaches the airspace of four or five yards on our block.

You know who loves a good oak? That's right, a squirrel. Squirrels in the tree seem to use our yard as a sort of acorn pantry/acorn shell depository, either chewing off clusters and letting them fall to the ground or eating them at the source and spilling the shells below. They seem to like to do it when we have guests. It's not cute, and in fact it's kind of annoying, but at least the squirrels haven't dug up any of our plants — no need with so many acorns above, I suppose.

I don't know that I've ever had the opportunity to view a squirrel from below, but I was in the yard the other day and noticing acorns falling around me, and I looked up to see this:

Holy Moly those are huge balls. I had no idea squirrel balls were so large. Like I said, who ever sees a squirrel from below? Pound for pound, a squirrel must have more ball than most creatures. Sure, they're no bush cricket, but they are large. Then again, perhaps that's not that usual for a rodent, and of course squirrels are just rats with better PR so . . .