Up to no good!

  I took advantage of the sunshine today since it has been days...weeks?...since we have had any such days.  I needed to paint a clothes rack and was not about to use spray paint indoors!  While outside, I kept hearing a squirrel fussing at me.  This rascal was not happy that I was at the base of the oak tree where he was more or less stranded.  He wanted me gone...and now!  Since I seemed to be paying more attention to the squirrel than what I was supposed to be doing anyway, I went a step further in aggravating the little noise-maker.  I leaned against "HIS" tree!  Geez, you would have thought that I had ruined all of nature by that act!  The squirrel went berserk!  He raced back and forth among the limbs and literally shrieked at me!  Goofy thing!

  While I was pestering the squirrel (instead of painting!), I noticed a small bit of green near the bottom of the trunk.  Well, that is not a good place for a branch to grow, I thought.  Turns out, it was not a branch at all but a small tree!  An acorn had become lodged in a furrow in the bark and had sprouted.  Whether this lodging was done by the acorn falling or was the act of the nefarious squirrel and his up-to-no-good self is yet to be understood!

  The tiny tree growing in the groove of the bark on a large tree surely would not be a healthy thing for either tree.  I twisted and turned the little sapling to see if it could be removed intact.  Surprisingly, it did let loose and I was able to plant the little guy in a pot.  There, it shall remain until I find a more suitable place for it to call home.  Oh...and the squirrel?  In all its frenzy to get out of the tree, it must have exhausted itself.  When I left to plant the tiny tree, the squirrel settled down for a nap!