Fall has many defining characteristics related to the outdoors world. But something that happened a little over a week ago seems to me uncharacteristic.

I was sitting on my porch, really just a front concrete stoop with a roof, reading during one of my frequent, daily work breaks outdoors when a movement caught my eye. A critter had come through the garage, a breeze-way between the front and back man doors. My immediate thought was a chipmunk because they use that route from back to front, or front to back, frequently.

When I looked down, thought, what I saw was a red squirrel that appeared to be trying to kill a chipmunk. But it was actually a red squirrel carrying a baby red squirrel. I would have thought that the young red squirrels would be nearly full grown by mid-September.

This is when the situation started to fall apart. Mama red squirrel decided upon realizing it was about a foot from my right foot dropped off the baby squirrel and ran into a nearby maple tree.

The baby squirrel rested against the stoop while I tried to communicate with mama squirrel. That, and I can not understand why, did not go well. I tried telling mama squirrel that everything was ok, and that she should come back and get her baby. But instead she retreated farther up the tree. During this time the baby squirrel had climbed on the stoop.

I resumed talking to mama squirrel. Seconds later something was crawling up my bare led. If you understood how much I despise creepy, crawly things, you would appreciate my reaction. I started to flinch, but in a millisecond realized it was the baby squirrel. Too late, though. The baby squirrel jumped back onto the stoop, then started snooping around.

Probably that flinch saved me from further discomfort because I surely would have tried to pet it, and it probably would have bit me.

Before long the baby squirrel made its way into the garage. I thought it might go all of the way through the garage, but the back door was closed. Try as I might, I could not find the baby squirrel in the garage. It would not answer when I called. There are just too many places to hide.

Returning to the front porch, I resumed trying to convince mama squirrel to come get its baby, to no avail. I was stressing. I do not think a squirrel than tiny could last long on its own.

Then Jeri, mu wife, suggested a possible out to the situation. “Open the overhead doors,” she suggested. (To you happily married guys I offer the truth. She ordered that I open the overhead doors.)

The following morning I saw something brownish streak across a winder, and when it should have landed something was knocked to the floor. The baby squirrel could not have done that. Both mama and baby must be in the garage. So again I opened all doors.

This is where the story ends, I hope. It would bother me to find the mummified body of the baby squirrel at some later date.

Meanwhile, Jeri is quarreling with a chipmunk. It seems this chipmunk had been digging a hold by the edge of the front stoop, which, she figured, has been the cause of some rainwater leakage into my basement office. She has tried filling the hole, but Chippy kept reopening it.

By the way, all chipmunks are named Chippy. I know this because I talk with them. They are not bothered by me to the extent that when I an sitting on the front stoop, rather than going around they hop over my feet.

Jeri escalated this chipmunk battle by digging out the dirt around the stoop, then refilling it with good top soil. I tamped it down, even bought a new tamper. Then jeri will all a higher layer of top soil which I will again tamp down.

I have yet to inform Jeri that this is a battle she will not win.

Indeed she may win. Jeri is the type of person who, when she sets her mind to something never bet against her. Or else. Not that I am taking sides. Neither do I want the chipmunk to be mad at me.