Terror in Ponderosa Woods!

Grace will snuggle down on one of the chairs to sleep for the day or take a nap in her travel box which we leave by the living room window, all activities she does very well while we are out sightseeing.  We leave her to do what all cats do well and that's sleep.  When we come back we will find her in the same spot, just waking up and yawning at us.  But her actions have not been her normal since we have been here at Diamond Lake RV Resort, northwest of Crater Lake National Park by 7 miles. We are camping under ponderosa pines, many of them, while lovely to see and smell, now has become a terror for Grace.  Now when we come back from a day out, we find her hunkered down on the bed and will take a lot to coax her out and down into the living room.  She is not every-day smart like Chip was, but she is street-smart from her days of being a ferel cat, and therefore, knows something is really wrong - have to hide.

Grace

We found out why she is acting like this - and we found out the hard way and the scary way two mornings ago.  About 7:15am we thought a bird had hit one of the windows of the RV - bam!  Then another, and another. Bam, Bam, Bam!!!!  Dave went outside to see what was going on and almost got hit himself.  Seems our little friends - the golden-mantled ground squirrels - of which there are many, are up in the trees picking off the pine cones and dropping them to the ground. Once the cones hit the ground, smaller pieces - the fruit - break off and is what they are after. The squirrel picks up the smaller pieces (see little bits to right of big cone - looks like worms) and store in their throats and they run to their nests and bury them for winter's food.  Many are hitting our roof.  Bam!  Bam!  Sounds like bombs.

Pine cone's fruit - smaller little worm looking things 

All day long they pick up the pine fruit, move them to their nests in the ground, then go back and get more.  Makes me very tired.  Then the next morning they are at it again, back up in the trees, reaching for the cones, dropping them, then on to the next branch.  Dave went up on the roof the first morning thinking there would be damage - it sounded like chunks of the roof were being broken off.  Thankfully no damage - just lots of debris.

Golden-mantle squirrel - looks like chipmunk

This morning - same thing happened again.  This time we watched Grace slink into the bedroom and jump on the bed, and if she was smart enough to figure it out, would have crawled under the sheets to hide.  I laugh now when I think of yesterday afternoon when one of the squirrels was dropping cones and hitting the roof and I watched Grace hiss at Dave (as if it was his fault) and ran into the bedroom.  I bet she will be glad when we move from here!  Poor cat.  They say within two weeks there will be snow here, and with the frenzied activity of the squirrels, it will be a long, long winter.