Mr. Nibbles is a little grey squirrel who hangs out on the top of the fences around our back yards/gardens. I call him Mr. Nibbles because he LOOKS like a Mr. Nibbles. (Stock Photo - this is NOT the real Mr. Nibbles, but it might could be his cousin Phil.)
Usually he looks very cute and fluffy, and scampers ahead of me along the fence as I go in or out of the gateway. I talk nice to him, and although he remains respectfully far from arms length away, he doesn't scamper frantically, but hops along as if he knows I won't hurt him.
Today, however, part of me was a little afraid. Perhaps there was no reason, but Mr. Nibbles was soaked. Wet thru and thru, his tail looked like a bottle brush, and he looked a little fierce.
It's been raining a lot here lately, sometimes with some really heavy drenchpours that seem to come out of nowhere - and I guess that I would be grumpy too if I got into one of those, but Mr. Nibbles was also a little less "wary" - I got awful close before he scared me enough that I stopped - pointed to where I was headed and suggested he hop on down.
He did hop that way, so I continued on, talking to him the whole way, and got through without incident.
I hope he is ok. I hope he is not sickly or something bad. I hope he is just angry and wet.
We have a bumper crop of skunks in the neighborhood this year. Every night one of them goes off. It is not nice to wake up to the fragrance of Eau de Pepe LePeu.
I hope Mr. Nibbles is all right...
