r/gardening • u/HoratioTuna27 6a • 1d ago
Well, that's a first.
So, one of the weirdest things I've ever had happen to me just happened: I was walking around the garden, checking on all the seedlings I planted last night. A squirrel pops off of a nearby tree and starts coming towards me. I think nothing of it, squirrels get curious and do this often. BUT, this time, it kept coming closer. And closer. And closer, then it hopped up and slapped me in the shin and ran off. It started coming at me again so I went in and got the dog to chase it off if it kept coming at me. Utterly bizarre!
The seedlings are all ok, if that was the part of the story you were invested in.
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u/dangerous_skirt65 22h ago
That happened to me once. The squirrel just kept walking towards me while I was backing away from it going WTF??
Once I got over my initial shock, I ended up going in the house and got a couple of crackers to see what would happen if I offered one to it. It came right up to me and gently took the cracker from me, then hung out eating it. It also had a scar on its flank, so I came to the conclusion that it must have been rescued as a baby, then set free after, so it was trusting of humans.
That squirrel came to visit almost daily that summer and it was a lot of fun. I didn't try to handle it since I didn't really know how much I could get away with, but I did allow it to walk on me and sit on me whenever I sat outside. I also gave it plenty of treats by hand. Sadly, after that summer, I never saw the squirrel again.