I still have that little silver spoon my mother would only feed me with.  I was literally born with a silver spoon in my mouth! As we all know, this saying became a derogatory term used to accuse ones upbringing as being privileged, to being plain spoiled. I certainly couldn’t be called spoiled in my upbringing, far from it. But my mother still used a silver spoon and not because she thought of it as a shiny status token. No, she thought that babies should only be fed with a silver spoon because it was healthy. She did not like plastic or metal and she had been told by her mother that anything other than a silver spoon could carry germs. This is true and it is a tradition that began during the plagues of the Middle Ages for the same practical reason, that it was safe. Silver didn’t spread infection or germs that could kill you or make you sick! Silver ware in general was developed for practical hygienic reasons. The baby’s silver spoon was a frontline weapon against disease and infection.

So there you go, the humble silver spoon Stephen Spurling

This is a priceless story about a woman’s love for her birds and her hatred for squirrels… This woman is real, but because she had to stoop to such drastic measures to protect her bird seed from the squirrels, I won’t use her real name. For the sake of telling this true story, I will name her Helen. Helen is a true prim and proper southern belle, standing all of 5′ 2′ with a 90 pound frame. She has impeccable taste in the way she dresses and alway has the best shoes and purses money could buy. Even in her 90’s  her lipstick is perfectly blotted around her tiny lips. ( you must be able to envision this woman)

Helen loves her yard and her birds. She had many bird feeders, her yard was a bird sanctuary, or at least it was to her. Well… we all know that if you have a bird feeder, you are really feeding the squirrels! Helen fought off squirrels for years. The humane way with the “have a heart” traps, and when she would catch them, she would carry them 5 miles away and release them in the park. She had always been told at that distance they wouldn’t be able to find their way back. Helen swore they were making their way back to her property.  Helen decided to get a bb gun and she tried that for a while, but then everyone became concerned with a 92-year-old woman shooting a gun, so her family  took the gun away. Well now she would have to go back to the traps. Knowing in her mind the squirrels were coming back to her yard… that wasn’t a solution.

I must tell you how we found out her new way of getting rid of the dang squirrels. One day her daughter-in-law,  Julie stopped by to visit. Helen was out in the yard doing her usual thing. Julie noticed  the wheel barrel was full of water, and said mama ,” why do you have the wheel barrel full of water?” Helen immediately chimed up… don’t go over there! Julie’s curiosity was peaked as anyones would be. Julie is now staring at the wheel barrel full of water and notices bubbles coming up from the water… Julie inches closer and now sees the true essence of what was happening. Helen has caught a squirrel in her trap and has put the squirrel in the wheel barrel full of water with a brick on top!  Helen is drowning the squirrel!

Julie sprung into action, immediately pulling the  caged squirrel out of the wheel barrel and throwing it to the ground in both fear and disgust! Julie was so upset she told Helen how disappointed she was in her actions … Helen simple explained that she was using the resources she had to eliminate the pesky squirrels.

This story has always fascinated me  because it shows the determination of a woman to successfully protect what is hers. All women have this innate ability to rise to any level of being  that is required to solve the problem at hand. Every woman has a little “Scarlett O’ Hara” in her. So when I say…”to meet Helen you would think, she wouldn’t harm a fly”, and by all rights I would be correct in saying so.  But she is a women who had a problem that needed resolve, and she resolved it!

Just so you know the squirrel did survive. Julie made sure of that. I even heard later that they had taken away Helen’s ” have a heart” trap. I am sure as long as Helen has a breath in her body, she  will be fighting those dang  squirrels!  Stephen Spurling