No more squirrels have been caught.  About a week ago we moved the trap to the other side of the house, cos I hadn’t heard anything for a while.  And the trap had sat in my attic for a few days with no action. But.  My son and his girlfriend had been hearing them on their side, so it was time to try over there.  They set the trap in their attic, and as they were looking around up there near dusk, they could see shadows of several of the squirrels moving inside the soffit along the eaves, not actually inside the attic.  So far they haven’t caught any, so maybe the squirrels have left. Articles I had researched early in  the squirrel saga said they like to live in attics in the winter and would leave in the spring.  Oh we can hope……

There is a wetland and duck pond about a mile from the house, and any they catch can go there and have a good place to live.  And further research shows these are southern flying squirrels, not the endangered northern ones,  so it’s legal and ok to trap these and relocate them to a place with lots of trees and the safety of places to hide and live.

As of last week I’ve also discovered something about the night MaChatte acted so strange, stranger than I’ve ever seen a well loved, well domesticated, cat act.  Here’s a description of that among the squirrel saga:  https://sarasinart.net/2014/03/11/score-squirrel-1-human-0/

I’ve discovered that the basic instincts of fear and pain are stronger in animals than love for their person, and here’s what I think happened.  Something scared her so bad that night, a squirrel in the attic making noises, running, something new that shouldn’t have been there.  And.  Almost a week later I went to cut her toenails and found one back toenail missing, totally, gone, broken off at the skin line.  ????  The toe was not sore then and she allowed me to touch her foot to cut the other nails. Now the nail is growing back and she’s allowing me to check on it with no problem.

I have several heating vents in the floor in the kitchen, (forced air heat) and she’s used to them and avoids walking on them.  I think that that night,  in her fear, she got a toenail caught and broke it off in one of those vents.  Fear and pain would have accounted for the way she acted that night, and I didn’t understand what she was trying to tell me then.  I only understood that there was an emotion going on that was so strong that I wasn’t allowed to be part of it or help with it.  Those heating vents are the only thing that could have caused a problem like a broken nail, broken off in such a way as I’ve never seen before,  since all other floor surfaces are smooth and uncomplicated.

So sometimes a mystery takes a while to unfold and give an answer.  She couldn’t tell me what was wrong, but the activity of cutting toenails every couple weeks told me later about that bad evening, I believe.   She and I got back to normal the next day, the foot is ok and a nail is replacing the one that was broken, I understand cat psychology a little better, and it seems our world might not include flying squirrels.  It’s all good.