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Riverview

Mama Squirrel

A Riverview woman keeps squirrels bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and vice versa.

By JESSICA KLIPA
Published October 7, 2005

It's a quiet, still morning. The sun streams through the treetops. Far above the ground, squirrels bound from branch to branch and watch the house below, waiting for a sign of their friend. They can always count on Jean Campion to bring them their gourmet breakfast.

Every morning at 6:30, Jean, 56, opens the creaky screen door to her home and walks onto the damp grass. Today, she wears a purple shirt with plaid purple pants and casual shoes. Her gray hair is in a ponytail, and her hazel eyes glow behind the frames of her glasses.

Dried branches and leaves snap beneath her feet as she makes her way to the stash of food at the side of her house. She scoops dried corn and sunflower seeds from two metal trash cans and begins to make her rounds.

"Whoodidu, Peanut, Lucky," she calls.

Jean scans the trees for her friends.

When she reaches the oak tree in front of her yard, she stoops down and fills three squirrel statues that encircle the base of the tree.

As Jean turns around, she decides to visit the most sacred corner of her yard.

Bricks outline the crowded little cemetery and the shells from sunflower seeds cover the ground. Squirrel statutes mark the place where she has buried her squirrels.

The squirrels respect the place. They feed on the corncobs that Jean puts along the fence. They sit on the bench behind the cemetery. But rarely do they trample over the remains of their fellow friends, she says.

Every time Jean looks at the cemetery, memories of one of her first rescued squirrels come flooding back.

Her passion for squirrels began five years ago when a woman found two baby squirrels in a fallen tree. She had heard that Jean loved animals so she took them to Otto's Hardware Store, where Jean worked.

When Jean first saw the squirrels, her heart sank. They had no hair and their eyes were closed. She just knew that she had to take them. She kept them at the hardware store for a while, and the guys named them Stew and Gravy. She fed them with a bottle three times a day and cleaned them so they wouldn't die. It took a lot of work to nurse them back to health, but to Jean, it wasn't a sacrifice. She didn't have any children and didn't see her father or siblings much.

She had always longed for someone to care about her. She spent 18 years in an abusive marriage, she says.

As Jean walks away from the cemetery, she remembers that it's time to tend her babies. She heads to the makeshift squirrel house in her back yard, where her squirrels are waiting to be fed.

On the front of the house, white siding neatly covers boards that are nailed together. Two sky blue shutters hang on both sides of a screened window. To the left, a white door separates her from her squirrels.

When the door opens, the squirrels know who's coming.

Jean steps inside and approaches two cages. Both have two squirrels living in them. The squirrels scamper over broken oak branches and fight for the space at the front of the cage. Jean tries to make their homes more like a natural habitat by putting the oak branches in the cages. But she still spoils them too much by feeding them almonds, hazelnuts, pecans and walnuts.

"Hi, guys. Good morning. Hey, babies. I know what you want," she says.

Jean pulls out some pecans for them, but they can't crack them open.

"All right. Here, let me crack it," she says.

Little paws reach between the bars for the nuts. By the time they eat one, they're looking for more.

Jean lovingly looks at her babies. They've made it so far. She usually has to feed them milk and soft fruit until they get stronger. Eventually, they're able to munch on acorns in their cages. That's when she knows they're ready to go back to the wild.

Sometimes they don't make it. That's what happened to Gravy. He was the first squirrel to be buried in the little cemetery. Jean hasn't forgotten him.

When Jean is done feeding them, she goes back inside. But she doesn't leave the company of her friends. In the far corner of her living room, she harbors more rescued squirrels. At one time, Ivan and Charley lived in a cage together as they prepared to go back into the wild.

Rocky the invalid, who now stays in the squirrel house, once lived in a box under her Christmas tree. On occasion, Rocky came out to play but never went past the couch. Injured nerves in his legs kept him from getting exercise.

His brother Lucky kept him company two or three nights a week by spending the night with him beneath the Christmas tree.

Jean leaves the door open during the day so the other squirrels can come and go when they please. Peanut's a regular. As soon as the temperature drops below 40 degrees, Peanut scampers into the house and finds warmth with his friends.

Jean loves giving her squirrels a safe haven. As she settles into her couch for the evening, she turns on the TV to watch the news.

Her parakeet, Sprite, and her cockatoo, Peaty, sing above the rippling of her squirrel fountain. Her squirrels keep her company while she watches them play together in their cage.

"They have made it a happy place for me," she says. "They care about me."

[Last modified October 6, 2005, 08:26:07]