on sunday while eating breakfast, i was watching the bird feeder on the deck. squirrels had been raiding it, and they had finally ripped its sides to shreds (i’ll include a smallish photo a bit later). it lay forlornly on its side, the remaining birdseed scattered.

a squirrel jumped up on the deck to investigate. as it circled the feeder sniffing for something more appetizing than millet (or perhaps it was sampling the millet - i really don’t know what goes on in the brains of squirrels), it wound up facing away from me, on all fours. that’s when i saw it.

it was a male squirrel. it had enormous balls.

now, i know rodents have big balls in relation to their body size (housemate james suggested it had to do with their quick sprint to sexual maturity), but i had never noticed a squirrel’s balls before. they were furry. they dragged on the deck.

and now i can’t unsee them.

every time i see a squirrel - and there is a sizeable population in these parts - i see squirrel balls.

is this evidence of some sort of gender selection among squirrel parents? have girl squirrels fallen out of favor? or am i becoming obsessed with their gonads (gonads and strife!) and seeing them even where they don’t exist? i don’t know!!!

on a completely unrelated note¹, wapo reports that “Legal experts familiar with the 4th Circuit said yesterday that the court is likely — but not certain — to reverse its earlier ruling and allow Virginia’s ban [on ‘partial birth infanticide’] to take effect.” looks like more reading for me.
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¹ i always have the urge to write “an” before i use the html tag to italicize text, even when the text being italicized begins with a consonant. food for thought.