the continuing saga

I'm sure my squirrel posts have you just glued to the edge of your seat so I will go ahead and tell you the latest installment. The squirrels are taking the peanuts and burying them in the snow in the backyard beyond our fenced yard. Last week we watched from an upstairs window as one squirrel in particular, who obviously was the high school flunkie in his family, carefully carried one peanut at a time down into the yard, dug a shallow snowy grave for it and covered it up. He did this with the remaining four peanuts left in the container before scurrying away to the big oak tree. Will those peanuts ever be eaten? Perhaps but not necessarily by the numbskull who buried them. You would think that in the middle of winter, a squirrel would uhm, eat the peanuts and not bury them.
So as I am relating this to a neighbor during a phone call this afternoon she suggested that if the shells were cracked or punctured in some way, the squirrel would eat it right away and not store it away where it would be spoiled by exposure. So now I aim to slightly crack each of the peanuts before placing them in the feeder and see what the squirrels do next. To be honest, I not convinced that these rather scatter-brained squirrels who frequent our area will follow after their cousins the chipmunks, who apparently do check their food and discern the correct food handling method. Hopefully the squirrels will surprise and convince this cynic.