For the Love of Stumpy

I was at Meri's house yesterday briefly so that she could get her kids down for naps after lunch.  While she finished up in the dining room, I went into the living room to grab the best seat in the house.  The couch with a nice view out the front picture window.

There was an odd looking animal on the snow outside that paused to look at me.  Was it a squirrel? 

Not my pic.  Just hunted down a pic of what I saw.

 It didn't have a nice plume, just a short stump of a tail.  But then I noticed his friend in the tree that he scampered to that looked just like the first creature but had the typical foot long tail flying behind him.

I called Meri to come look at him too.  We saw him climb up the tree and rest on a branch before scurrying down the trunk and across the street.

Meri fell in love with him.  "OOOH He's so cute!!!  I'm naming him Stumpy!"

We speculated on what may have happened to his tail.

That's when I noticed blood specks in the snow.  Whatever had happened was recently...  

I had a few minutes before I was needed to take care of the baby so Meri asked me to go outside and walk around the house and see if I could find out what had happened to Stumpy's tail.

I can only assume, she wanted to keep it and pin it to her wall for good luck.

Had to get my shoes back on...  Winter sucks.

I walked around the house and tracked that poor squirrel's steps feeling like the intense tracking that Dread Pirate Roberts did in The Princess Bride movie.

"the squirrel ran around this tree if not mistaken and from the look of the Watership Down scene on the snow, dug up not one but two walnuts from underneath."

"Prior to that, Stumpy ran to the walnut tree from the direction of the corner." 

or Fire Swamp, if you will.

Well, no tail in site, just drops of blood here and there.

We figured he'd gotten partially run over by a car.  But later at my haircut, I was sharing the story of Stumpy with my hairdresser.  She nodded and said, "Some dog got a hold of him."

EWWW!!!  I hadn't thought of a dog!  But she's probably right.

No lucky squirrel's tail for us.  Some dog ate it or gave it to his family as a gift.