Guess Who Got There First?

I never thought a cartoon could change the way I look at real life, but *The Nut Job* somehow did. At first, it was just a fun movie to pass time, but the more I watched those squirrels hoarding nuts and scheming, the more I started to wonder about the actual lives of squirrels. How do they really pick which nut to keep? Why do they seem so smart about it? Before I knew it, I was paying way more attention to them than I ever had in my life. Not in a creepy way, just curious.  I started watching them closely each time I went to the village, noticing the way they darted from branch to branch, how precise they seemed in choosing what to carry away, as though every nut had been weighed in their tiny, clever minds. There’s this palm tree(well several) my brother planted in my mom’s farm. They’ve grown so tall and bear palm nuts, and when they’re pressed, the oil is like gold. People use it to cook, and my mom always tells me how rubbing it on the skin gives you a kind of natural glow. But the problem is, in our village, you can’t just cut down the nuts once they’re ripe. There’s this law that says you have to wait a certain period before harvesting.  But guess who doesn’t wait? The squirrels. By the time it’s officially “legal” to cut the bunches, those little creatures, and the birds too, but mostly the squirrels have already eaten through half of them. I’ve watched it happen so many times. The palm nuts get so ripe, almost calling out, and then the squirrels swoop in like they’ve been planning it all along. For people who rely on selling the nuts, it’s a real loss. But me? I can’t even bring myself to stay angry at them. It’s strange, but I think I understand them a little more now. The way they move, the way they pick, the way they never seem to waste time, it’s all survival. Their own way of survival. Although it’ll be nice if they share a little. Anyway, I believe that in their own way, they’re just doing what we’re all trying to do, make it through each season with enough to keep going. This is my response to the Freewrite [daily prompt](https://peakd.com/hive-161155/@daily.prompt/1-october-2025-mariannewests-freewrite-writing-prompt-day-2877-nut) ^{[thumbnail](https://pixabay.com/photos/fox-squirrel-squirrel-rodent-animal-8028963/)}