With Bag Lady and Shopping Siren away for the week — and who are we kidding, they’re woo-hooing at pool boys wherever they are — Managing Editor/days Judy Meyer stepped in with a tale of blood, squirrels and shopping. Enjoy!

On July 4, when my husband and I returned home from a mountain bike ride, there was a gray squirrel sitting on the windowsill in our kitchen eating a PowerBar.

The stew-sized varmint had chewed a hole through the metal screen, taken the lid off the cookie jar, pulled a vanilla/yogurt energy bar out and was having a little picnic.

It froze when it saw me, and then started zooming around the kitchen knocking stuff off the counter. We opened the back door and, after a fair amount of yelling, chased it outside.

We cleaned up, pulled the screen out for repair and went about our business.

A week later, the squirrel came back, chewed a hole through a different screen and raided the cookie jar again. It was long gone by the time we got home but had left the remains of the foil wrapper on the counter so we knew right away we had been robbed.

On the advice of the kind man at Paris Farmers Union, we sprinkled coyote urine granules around the deck and hung thin strips of cloth soaked in animal blood around the windows to discourage the squirrel from sniffing around the screens.

We also set three rat traps and two Havahart traps on the back deck. On the advice of a professional animal control officer, we used PowerBars as bait. The next morning, we woke up to find all the traps had been tripped, the bait was gone and the cages empty. The urine and blood did nothing to discourage this animal from dining on our deck before heading home to his nest.

Don’t kid yourself. Squirrels are crafty. I don’t think they’re particularly cute, but I will acknowledge they are smart.

They’re also creatures of habit. So, we re-set the traps using peanut butter to paste PowerBars onto the floor of the live traps and caught the squirrel, which promptly went nuts as it looped circles inside the cage.

I wanted to put some distance — and the Androscoggin River — between this squirrel and our home, so he was relocated to Kennedy Park after a traumatic ride from Buckfield to Lewiston (traumatic for me because the squirrel screamed and thrashed around in the trunk the whole way).

I briefly wondered whether this country squirrel would adjust to city life, but not enough to say I really cared.

The next morning, we woke up to find that the trash can on the other side of the house had been knocked over and the bags ripped apart. Thinking we had another destructive squirrel on our hands, we set the trap by the cans and overnight caught —  a raccoon. That animal was relocated to the boat launch at Lake Auburn. Seemed like a nice place to set him free and he was surprisingly compliant during the ride into town. Smelly, but quiet.

Then, I went home and stowed all the traps in the basement and re-hung the repaired screens.

Last Friday, the squirrel came back with a vengeance. I mean, such a vengeance that when this little saga hits the big screen, Bruce Willis will be cast to play the role of the varmint.

It was bulked up and ticked off.

It must have arrived in the morning because, over the course of the day it ate through a screen, removed the lid from the cookie jar and hauled nine PowerBars and two Clif Bars out of the house. Don’t laugh. That’s more than $15 worth of food out the window.

It also peed all over the counter and knocked over my marbles I keep in a crystal jar on the windowsill.

I hauled the traps back out of the basement and re-set them on the deck. I also searched the yard for any sign of foil wrappers or energy bars because I wanted to figure out where it was stashing my groceries. No sign of digging, stacking or squirreling.

By Monday, after bait twice disappeared without tripping the trap, we discovered this squirrel is also a litterbug. Tiny pieces of foil were sprinkled on the lawn, having fallen from an oak tree just outside the kitchen window, a tree that must offer the squirrel a clear view of the cookie jar.

Burglary and theft is one thing. Littering on the lawn means war.

I wired a Clif Bar to the floor of one trap and stuffed a peanut butter sandwich into a plastic container for the other trap, thinking the struggle of pulling the bait from the traps might actually trigger the hinged doors before the squirrel could march out.

It worked.

We caught two squirrels just hours after the traps had been set, but they were smaller than the original vandal. These, we figured, must be the apprentices.

They, too, now live in Kennedy Park. 

On Thursday, we lured another squirrel into a trap. It is now enjoying the well-manicured grounds at the State House, and the hunt continues in Buckfield.

Should you need to conduct your own squirrelly mission:

* Havahart Easy Set Trap, Tractor Supply Co., $34.99

Pack of two catch-and-release traps. Use the bigger trap; it can accommodate more bait.

* Shake-Away coyote urine, 20 ounces, Paris Farmers Union, $14.99

A salt-shaker style container of dried coyote urine granules. Surprisingly un-smelly.

* PowerBars, box of 16, BJ’s Wholesale Club, $19.99

Good price on the box of chocolate/peanut butter and vanilla/yogurt bars at $1.25 each. I like the chocolate; squirrels like the yogurt.

Best find: Screen repair, Galaxy Glass, $15.73 per screen (tax included)

Offers quick service and sympathy after repeated trips to repair the same screens.

Think twice: Repels-All animal blood, one quart, Paris Farmers Union, $12.49

Apparently does not repel all — it’s also not worth the stink or the mess.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com