Sabrina Johnson
In a battle between man and squirrel, the odds would be on a human winning – but one red squirrel just isn’t giving up.
For eight years, Bill Fischer has had been trying to stop a red squirrel from filling his pick-up truck with walnuts.
Every Autumn the persistent rodent stashes hundreds of nuts in the engine compartment, wheel arches, behind the bumper and in the doors of the 56-year-old’s truck in preparation for winter.
As a result, Bill, who lives in Fargo, North Dakota, has to spend hours removing walnuts from all the various nooks and crannies of his truck.
He said: ‘I have been dealing with the red squirrel since 2013, this has now become a sort of ritual with it filling my truck with nuts and me trying to remove them.’
The insurance agent said he never sees the squirrel until the walnuts on the tree that grows near to where he parks his vehicle start to ripen.
He said over the years he had tried various methods of deterring the critter from using his truck as a hiding place, including spraying the vehicle with a Tabasco and Cayenne pepper mix – but nothing seemed to work.
And this year the squirrel has outdone itself, stashing a record-breaking 148kg of nuts in Bill’s truck.
Bill added: ‘The most I had ever pulled so far was four buckets, so with seven buckets this year the squirrel was on a mission.’
Bill said he used to feel bad about ‘undoing’ the squirrel’s hard work but now having to clear out his truck each year has become sort of ‘ritual’.
‘I have to have a sense of humour about this after so many years.
‘I put in as much hard work as the squirrel when I have to take my truck apart just to remove bucket after bucket of walnut,’ he said.
