This squirrel and I have a lot in common. No, I don’t have a cute little furry tail, but I do love coconuts (as I’ve mentioned a few times before.) And when people ask me why I live in Costa Rica, fresh coconuts - for about 40 cents a nut - rank high on the pro side of my list.

When I traveled in the States, finding a green coconut was a challenge. Actually, I never did. I did find a older, brown seed and when the natural food co-op guy told me the price - $5.00!! - I passed. Besides I might have lost a digit trying to open it. I did find the sweet coconut juice boxed in the same store, at about the same wild price.

The other day, I opened a coconut with two swings of my butcher knife (I’m still skittish around machetes). Quite proud of myself I was. This squirrel is no dummy. She gets them pre-chopped by the guy who sells the pipa water at the soda next to her. People stop to admire the little rodent - almost like seeing an animal in the wild here - and the vendor might get a sale or two. The squirrel no dummy.? I can relate to the squirrel and her joy. She’d scoop her little paw into the meat and get a sweet, white piece and nibble away.

Sometimes in my kitchen when I’m all alone, I sit there almost in an unconscious daze scooping little bits of coconut out of the shell. I think if someone took a photo, the resemblance to my squirrel friend here would be so obvious it might be scary.

Some people think of squirrels as a nuisance. I saw a story the other day where grey squirrels faced a “massive cull” in England as the brutish grey squirrel was overpowering the native red squirrel population. Long time ago, someone brought a few grey squirrels (well, at least two) over to England, and now they’ve taken to it. Now they are being killed for just being themselves. On the other hand, the red squirrels is doomed without help. Even in the land of squirrels, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.