October 29, 2018 - When I recently called my brother Joe (who lives in Orange, Texas) to ask if he wanted to go photographing birds with Pam and me, he said he couldn’t go “because of Harvey.” I thought he was referring to the high water left by Hurricane Harvey but instead he was talking about a baby squirrel that fell from its nest during the storm. “We named him 'Harvey' and we have to feed him 'Half and Half' every four hours.” From that day on when I called Joe, everything was about Harvey. “He just loves us and likes to be petted,” he said. “He really loves Melody.”
Melody complained later that Harvey had begun terrorizing her. “He bites me on my neck and when I try to get him off, he jumps on my head and just goes crazy.” “I grabbed him today and slung him all the way across the kitchen floor.” “When Joe came in and saw poor Harvey on the floor… dazed and breathing heavily… he started petting him and quizzing me about what I’d had done to the squirrel.” But before she could explain, Harvey exploded upward and left a bloody trail of scratches on Joe’s arms. Joe had enough and slung him against the wall.
Last week we asked Joe if he wanted to go photographing at the The Anahuac Wildlife Refuge. “I’m ready”, he said. He didn’t even mention Harvey when I called and never mentioned him during our six-hour trip. I’m really worried about Joe, Melody and Harvey right now. I think there are some hard feelings between them. I hope they can work it out… but if they can’t… I figure they need to put Harvey in the woods with the other squirrels that think like squirrels do. But what do I know?
Harvey’s their squirrel.
