By Dr. Sissi Carroll

Flat Rock, North Carolina, the village in Western North Carolina (WNC) where my husband, Joe, and I now live, is a destination town because it offers quick access to these, among other delights: 

• The Appalachian Trail,
• Blue Ridge Parkway,
• Pisgah National Forest (with countless waterfalls)
• Sliding Rock
• Great Smoky Mountains
• Biltmore Estate and gardens
• Asheville
• Antiques
• Bluegrass music
• Craft beer
• Mountain bikes
• Friendly people
• And squirrels. White squirrels.

Our white squirrels, to many visitors’ surprise, are not albino. They are leucistic; in other words, they have reduced pigmentation as a result of a recessive allele.  Our little white squirrels are actually Eastern grey squirrels in disguise. Most of them have a black stripe from head to tail down the middle of their backs, like reverse skunks. They are local celebrities, with craft festivals, music events, and annual community gatherings named for them and laws protecting them from being hunted or prevented from running wild.  I call all of the white ones with black stripes “Frosty.” Occasionally a solid one spends a few days in our yard and visiting our deck, where it scavenges sunflower seed husks left by the cardinals.  The solid ones I’ve named “Snowflake”. 

The odd white coloration defies the small mammals’ attempts to hide in the pines, maples, poplars, and oaks that they run up and down all day.  It is easy to spot the flashy critters as they frenetically paw wads of leaves under their chins, then fastidiously tuck the leaf wads in to hold them secure as they sprint across the yard and up a tree.  When they find their destination, they unload the wad, piecing together their nests one leaf at a time. It’s also easy to see baby white squirrels sneak out of their nests in early springtime hours, to watch them practice jumping from limb to limb like unsure acrobats slowly learning their life’s locomotion.

Brevard, which is small town near Flat Rock, has adopted the white squirrels as its unofficial mascot. Legend about how the evolution-defying animal came to WNC starts there.  A resident explained in a newspaper piece that in the mid 20th century, an uncle brought two caged white squirrels to her when she was ten years old.  He had caught the animals on his pecan farm in Madison, Florida, after they escaped from an overturned circus caravan. She cared for the squirrels in a large outdoor cage for several years, but eventually one escaped. The remaining squirrel looked so lonely that it was released, too.  Despite her fears for its safety in the wild,  within a couple of years, the pair of white squirrels had proven their ability to survive, thrive, and procreate. They have been as much a part of WNC as gneiss rocks and banjo tunes ever since.

The white squirrels have helped me feel right at home in WNC, because I am not new to the notion of squirrels as special, privileged creatures.  My brothers and I grew up next door to our grandparents, Nanny and Dado.  Dado spent almost all of his time working and wandering outdoors, tending flowers, walking in the woods, clearing the creek and springs, mending rock pathways. As a vegetable and flower gardener, he was a magician.  We ate his tomatoes like they were apples, right off the vine, and his snap peas like they were popsicles. He could pitch a handful of seeds into what looked like a pile of rotten sweet potatoes and stale oatmeal and a few weeks later, elegant and sweet-scented flowers bloomed in masses. Nanny’s table almost always had some of the food he had grown on it, and their home was encircled by magnificently unruly rose bushes and hydrangeas.  Dado loved nature and spoke its language with his hands, his hard work, his respect for living things.

Squirrels were high on Dado’s list of natural wonders that should be honored, respected, protected, treasured.  He had natural springs on a swampy portion of his property, clear pure springs that bubbled from beneath the ground into small pools to provide the water he and Nanny drank. On the trees surrounding those inviting cold springs, which were at one time popular picnic stops for Highway 41 travelers in north GA, he hung wooden signs with the words: “PET SQUIRRELS. DO NOT SHOOT.” I never knew exactly what would happen to anyone whom Dado caught shooting a squirrel. I didn’t ask. Dado didn’t talk much.

What I do know is that he showed me that even an ordinary “yard rat” – like every single animal and person – is beautiful in special ways, and is worth noticing, watching, protecting, treasuring.  I wonder how many times I have forgotten to see the beauty in the ordinary around me, to protect the voiceless and vulnerable, to treasure even the smallest and least of the natural world.

And what does the Lord require of you, but to do Justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?   Micah 6:8