Some of you may already know Victor, but I wanted to give you a formal introduction anyways.
Meet Victor:
Victor was an early-ish ceramics project. It was my first time glazing. It was also only my second time cleaning up a freshly poured piece on my own, which was pretty ambitious now that I know more about the art of ceramics.
Now Victor lives in our front yard.
I think the living squirrels might think he’s some sort of god or something?
Let me tell you Victor’s story.
Here is where he started:
This is how he looked when I first met him. Fresh out of the mold and new to the world, this leather-hard squirrel was looking a little rough. Now, I could go deep into the ceramics process and whatnot, but this is about the garden and NOT ceramics, so I will direct you to this post where I gush about my newfound love for ceramics.
So, I did some work on the as-ye-unnamed squirrel, cleaned him up and had Nadga put him in the kiln for a firing. Here’s how he looked after that:
He cute. Looking good. Then I glazed him, which I have no pics of and he went in for a firing again.
I will tell you a secret. Victor has a secret too. It’s a red bottom:
Yeah, it’s rough, but it was my first time doing a glaze, y’all! I’m much better now.
After he came out of the firing, I already knew my ceramic squirrel was named Victor. I knew this for two reasons.
First off: I am obsessed with Colman Domingo (who will win an Oscar this year for “Sing Sing”, I’m calling it now). At the time I was making this piece, we were working our way through The Walking Dead universe and Colman Domingo was in Fear The Walking Dead, playing a character named Victor.
Wait, let me tell you why I am obsessed with Colman Domingo. It is because he knocked a role out of the park that I thought was impossible to knock. He played the ‘bad guy’ (X) in Zola. There is a scene where he turned from nice to mean that makes my blood run cold every time. He nailed this role. NAILED. I’ve seen Zola no less than 25 times. God, I love it.
It is also funny to me that his character was named “X” when the movie is based on a Twitter thread – which is now called “X”. Maybe Twitter was the bad guy all along?
Okay, so that’s why I love Colman Domingo and why the name Victor was floating around my brain.
Then one day, Mickey and I were watching the squirrels run around our yard, chasing nuts and stuff, and we noticed a story unfolding.
One squirrel was chasing the other all around the yard. I couldn’t tell if they were having fun or fighting, but it was entertaining. Eventually, one squirrel won the tussle/playfight and I named him “Victor”.
And then my brains and my insides aligned and I knew that’s what my ceramic squirrel would be named.
At first, Victor lived inside on the piano, but the plan was always to put him outside.
Now he lives right outside the stoop of the Professor Haus.
He is safely secured with a pole up his bum and two brick pavers to rest his weary haunches on.
At first, the other squirrels would not go near him. Then we started leaving nuts on the paver right in front of Victor, like an offering.
By the morning, the nuts were always gone. Walnuts go first. They are high value on the Michigan squirrel market.
Then we got this squirrel feeder thing. (this is a video, btw)
We bring it outside when we’re outside. Which is a lot right now. I mean, it’s almost the end of July, it’s 1 pm in the afternoon and it’s only 78 degrees out right now. I had to go get socks cause my feetsies were cold!
There is one squirrel that comes by all the time and just gets nut after nut. Some he eats right in front of us and others he runs off and hides.
If I’m out here and the feeder is not, he’ll climb up the stoop stairs, give me a look of disdain, and climb back down.
I always have nuts in my pocket which I offer to him, but he ain’t having them. He wants the feeder nuts.
When we put the feeder away for the evening, we make it a point to leave a couple nuts on the brick paver in front of Victor.
They are almost always gone by morning.
Inevitably there are a few days where we don’t bring the feeder out with us and I noticed something that happens if we leave it inside too many days in a row.
The squirrels leave Victor “offerings” of sorts.
Sometimes it’s an empty shell. Sometimes it’s a clean nut that they went and got from someone else. Others, it’s a dirty AF nut, dug up from somewhere in the Professor Haus yard.
It feels like an offering to the nut gods to me.
Which makes me feel like they think Victor is some kind of static squirrel.
What do you think? Is Victor God-worthy?
We’re gonna be building him a new home soon because we’re changing the entire look of the walk up to the Professor Haus. I’ll be sure to write about it as it happens.
Okay bye for now.
