On one of our warm sunny days a few weeks ago I was weeding one of my flower beds. Suddenly around the corner came a baby squirrel. As he came closer I pulled out my phone to snap a picture and he just kept coming closer to the point I thought he was going to climb on me!

I thought of a book I read to my kids when they were young…Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman (love this author’s stories!) The squirrel proceeded to follow me around. I called to my grandkids and their visiting friends who were playing in the yard. They fell in love with the little guy. A few of them did let him crawl on them. He loved shoes and shoe laces!

I gave up on doing any more weeding that day because he wanted to crawl on me whenever I knelt down and I wasn’t too keen on that idea! My husband was working on our lawn mower across the yard so I walked up to see how he was doing. Little squirrel followed me and decided to help him instead, crawling all over the mower and tool box.

The kids looked up information on baby squirrels online. They decided to name him Charlie and give him some food and a safe place to sleep for the night since he couldn’t seem to figure out where his mother was. He had played with the family all afternoon and evening and was sleepy.

They left the door open on a cat crate so he could come and go as he liked. He slept most of the next day, but didn’t make it. We all decided he must have been too young to have been away from his mommy. The kids were heartbroken but felt better knowing that Charlie had a great time the last day of his life.

My granddaughter and I decided to paint a watercolor picture for memory of the day with Charlie. We liked the pose on Pa’s glove.

We got lots of practice making fur! She did a great job learning to capture the shadows and highlights. I love watching her creative skills grow. In order for her to concentrate on painting skills and not worry about the drawing, we traced the shape of the squirrel from the photo using the light table. She’s working on drawing skills, too, but that was not what I wanted her to focus on. It felt very freeing when I learned that even professional painters will trace shapes from a photo to get dimensions more accurate. So if you feel you are lacking in the drawing department, don’t let that hold you back from painting! Keep practicing on increasing your drawing skills though because it helps in the long run!

Here is her finished painting:

And this is my finished painting:

R.I.P. Charlie! You brought joy to many people the day you spent with us!