Another Squirrel Story

This morning, standing on the balcony, trying to figure out which redwood tree I overheard the management talking about cutting down recently, I noticed a really rather plump squirrel with a good-sized, still green apple in its mouth rushing around the shredded bark mulch on the ground below me, dithering. It was looking for a place to bury it, for winter, I suppose, though really it's never winter here--perhaps it knows something I don't know. It tried, with its front paws, several spots: in the mulch under a couple of smallish camellias, both of which looked to me like good spots to bury an apple. Then it went through the fence into the next door neighbors' patio and tried their flower pots, eventually settling on a largish one with a geranium. 

Across the street, there's a small house with a couple who collect apple trees, including on the strip of ground between sidewalk and street. Ever since the August some kids picked an apple fight, they hang little homemade pieces of paper from strings in the trees at this time of year: "These apples aren't ripe yet, please don't pick them."