Dyniss

During my veggies-and-hummus lunch munching outdoors today, I intently watched a squirrel foraging for his lunch. This was behind Old City Hall in Toronto, where there is minimal greenery. There are some trees, but they are the type which are small and surrounded by concrete except for openings just around the base of the tree trunks. And there’s no green at the bottoms, just wood chips to help retain water for the water-starved trees.
Anyway, this squirrel was doing a fine job of retrieving nuts out of one tree across the street and then making his way back to find places to bury them. I was all of fascinated, happy and sad at the sight of him trying to do so. He went from one isolated tree to another, sniffing at “nature”, but concluding that he couldn’t bury a nut in the wimpy wood chips (Acidic? Poor consistency?). He paused once where there was a crack in the sidewalk, as if he could smell the earth below and somehow stuff his nut down there. After much meandering each time, the final resting place for the nuts was always in the 4-foot-high concrete plant holders in front of the building on whose steps I sat. I could tell the squirrel was reluctant each time. The planters were filled with weird “plants”.
Did the squirrel succeed or fail?