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eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (5)
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Rat like Squirrel
When my wife and I walk around the motel that we are currently residing, I seldom see squirrels moving about. The only odd thing is the squirrels I see here are somewhat different from the ones I see from the forests in Saratoga. They are the same brown type, but the body is lot smaller, and their tails are not as furry so it almost looks like a rat.
There are few groups that lives near a tree, but in a nearby nature preserve, there are some that live underground and wandering about and it almost looks like a rat from distance.
There are many types of squirrels. The ones I have seen in Korea have stripes on the back and have a luscious tail. The American squirrels’ are grey, brown and black. The only thing is most of the squirrels near where I live currently, the black ones are rare as most of them are browns or grey and they are mostly very skinny.
The squirrels near the apartment (currently still under construction) are big, healthy and have luscious tails. There is way more squirrels there as well. The babies would chase around each other around a tree and play around healthily.
Most of the squirrels in Korea hibernate during winter season. But because the weather here isn’t too cold, the American squirrels are visible almost every season. I was wondering why the squirrels around the motel are so small and have near-flat tail, I thought about the food chain there. I thought, even as a same species, the nature and the food chain they have would affect their livelihood.
In between many of the factory buildings there are few pine and redwood tree planted. Even in the parking lots, there are trees that do not bear any nut but gives out great shade. Therefore it is only natural that the Saratoga’s squirrels have plenty of acorns and would grow to be healthy and fat while the squirrels here stay meek because of their lack of food to eat.
When I had arrived at the motel the first time, I had noticed something very strange on the road. There were many pine cones that looked like they had been eaten away so that it looked like a corn cob that was eaten. While walking around unknowingly, I had seen also many still-green pine cones that the squirrels had been eaten away that were on the road.
Many of the pine cones were half-eaten and some were eaten all the way but were still stuck to the branches but fell off later and had dried out. Their main diet would’ve consisted of pine cone, and seeing that they ate what little fruit it had contained. So it was only natural that the squirrels living in the plains would only have berries and have had no chance to send nutrition to the tail’s growth as well.
Yesterday morning while walking, I saw a squirrel dragging a half-eaten pine cone that looked like it was heavier than its body across the grass very slowly. I was so curious and decided to take a closer look and saw the squirrel leave it behind and hid behind a pine tree. This morning I checked and the pinecone was gone as if the squirrel had taken it or something.
Through that fact, I could see how much affect one’s surrounding environment does matter. Children growing up in famine and cold weather’s body physique compared to those of warm, protected and well fed condition have different body frame and weight is the same just like the squirrels.
For most Korean Americans, children born here and grown here are much bigger and healthier. Children who followed their parents to America at early age are also likewise. In my case, I had suffered the Korean War during my 1st grade, while my father passed away the following months. With the turbulent changes happening so often, I had lived a poor childhood to adulthood so the children I had here cannot compare in size. My wife is also likewise. Her father had passed away when she was 3, moved to South Korea when she was 5 when China had become a communist country. I could guess possibly how she had lived.
To be comparing me and my wife to our grandchildren sounds funny.
My oldest grandchildren are 13 and are about my height. In the granddaughters, the oldest was already my wife’s height at age 11. She’s now 13 and is slightly shorter than me. Depending on the type of soil and where the environment is like, it does matter how it affects people. One thankful thing to note is that, unlike the squirrels we do not have a tail so we don’t have to worry about a small, meek looking tail after all.
(July 24th, 2018) |
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Why? 
eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (5)