Story #5 from Irma

Okay, okay, I lied.  I have one more story from hurricane Irma.  After the storm was over we realized that we needed to cut down the palm tree in our front yard, as it was way too close to the electrical transformer.  We didn't really know when we were going to do it, but figured sometime in the next month or so would be fine.  Well, Saturday morning I got a text from my neighbor saying that her father was coming with a chainsaw to cut some palms in her own backyard and did we want to go ahead and have him chop ours at the same time.  Heck to the yes!  Her whole family basically showed up and helped us take down and then chop up the palm tree.  Took less than 30 minutes to have it completely done!

Thank you, Joyner family!

What a view!

However, as the palm was being chopped up, Jacob noticed that something was living in one of the outside pieces of bark.  This is what we discovered:

Holy crap, what are those things??!

BABY FLYING SQUIRRELS!  And by baby, I mean like born yesterday, baby squirrels.  They were itty bitty, and pink, and fleshy and for a few seconds we thought they were bats!  After the initial shock wore off, we didn't know quite what to do with them.  So what do you do when you don't know what to do about something?  You poll strangers on Facebook, of course!  I posted the pic on the Lakeland Online Yard Sale page and within about 30 minutes I had over 60 responses and names of people who wanted them.  I was hesitant to give them to a regular person who swore they "knew how to take care of just this exact kind of squirrel" and we opted instead to take them to someone's recommendation of Lakeland Veterinary Hospital.  Cindy scooped them up into a bowl and me, my mom and Cindy drove them over.  The five girls working at the clinic were immediately smitten with them and promised they would be totally fine and released as soon as they were big enough.  They were even able to tell us the gender of the squirrels after seeing them for about 5 seconds.  Amazing! These guys really owe their lives to Cindy, who was adamant that we find someone to help them live and did not stop bothering me until a happy ending was reached.  You did good, Cindy :)

Goodbye, little guys! I hope you eat the pineapples
of my enemies