Who has been eating my...gate?

At the crack of dawn, I was out painting the three garden gates.  Michael made the gates last year but, for one reason or another, I am just now getting around to painting them.  It did not bother me much since the wood used for the gates was stuff that floated up in a hurricane.  I figured that if the boards had floated around in salt water for a good twenty-four or more hours, a little rainwater could not possibly do any more damage.  Not all of the wood is from just planks.  He used parts of doors, floors, cabinets and even a bedframe!  Each gate is different..very different!  But I like them and since he made them for me, no one had better say a negative thing about them!  Anyway, this morning was painting time!  I decided on red!  Yup..red!

The first gate was easy to paint as it was more flat and did not have a multitude of doodads attached to it.  I made quick work of that one!  The second was a bit more challenging.  This is the one made from an old bedframe.  Michael included the upper part that had a bunch of spindles.  The wrath of the hurricane had broken the leg of the bed which rendered it unusable so..it is now a gate!  I did not mind the extra time it took to paint this gate as it overlooked the bird feeders!  I was entertained to the fullest!  Then came the final gate.  I started at the top and was planning on working my way down from there.  Swash...the paint went smoothly across the top board until..I hit a strange hole!  Hmmm?  This looked mightily like a big bite mark.  Something has been eating my gate!  I could fully  understand this if it had been at the bottom and something was trying to get inside the garden but this gnawed place was at the very top of the gate!  If some critter was trying to get into the garden, since it was already on top of the gate, why did it not just go right on inside?  The bite mark confused me.  Just about then, Michael came into the garden.  I showed him the gnawed place on the gate.  Hmmm?  Yup..same response as mine!  Then we took a closer look.

The gate itself had started to sag a bit as gates have a tendency to do with the wear and tear of age.  The hinges held fast but the boards were starting to pull apart a bit.  This created a nice size crack between the boards.  Deep in the crevice between the boards was an odd assortment of acorns!  A squirrel had obviously used my garden gate as a silo!  Now it was trying to gnaw a doorway so it could get the stored nuts!  Silly squirrel!  How in the world did it find time to do this?  Ms. Ez usually keeps those squirrels on the move!  I suppose that I am going to have to remove the acorns soon since that hungry squirrel will make short work of my gate!  Silly squirrel!  At least, the gates are red, now!!!