Squirrel curiosity

Hello, While walking home from church, I noticed a squirrel approaching us from Leroy’s side. As we stopped moving it kept coming closer and closer while looking up at us. It started circling us. Both of us were watching this squirrel all of the time. I wondered was it rabid? That seemed not to be the case as it moved smoothly and just kept looking at us. After it made the complete circle of us, we moved a little and it scampered away. It was so close I could clearly see its toenails were a lot larger than our bat’s. We also saw a fox when picking black raspberries. All this city wild life comes to meet us. When we see a fox, another walker is almost certain to tell us that they also saw a fox. There is something about it that helps us to break the barrier and talk with a stranger. A friend asked us if we would go pick their green beans as they are in MN now. Someone else was supposed to do it and they could not. Last evening Leroy and I went there, picked enough beans for a meal or two. Noticed that many of their red raspberries were ripe or even overripe. I ate quite a few before Leroy decided that it would be better if we picked them as otherwise, they just rot on the branch. We picked a nice amount, went home, put water on them to wash them, and were treated to a spectacular showing of small black bugs crawling up to the surface. Hastily, we took them outside. After four washes they were clean enough that we could not see any more bugs. The vinegar in the water did seem to bother them at all. Not wanting the bugs in our yard, we managed to dump the water in a five-gallon bucket with a lid on it. Every time I opened it; I could see them working their way to the top of the bucket. I am not quite as enamored of these bugs as I am of the bat and the squirrels. Instead, I thought, “Gross, gross, gross!” Paula