You Try To Scale A 30-Foot Oak With Testicles The Size Of Your Head

The backyard at Kawama sits underneath an oak branch canopy from a tree next door. The thing, I was told, is about 30 years old. Today it encroaches the airspace of four or five yards on our block.

You know who loves a good oak? That's right, a squirrel. Squirrels in the tree seem to use our yard as a sort of acorn pantry/acorn shell depository, either chewing off clusters and letting them fall to the ground or eating them at the source and spilling the shells below. They seem to like to do it when we have guests. It's not cute, and in fact it's kind of annoying, but at least the squirrels haven't dug up any of our plants — no need with so many acorns above, I suppose.

I don't know that I've ever had the opportunity to view a squirrel from below, but I was in the yard the other day and noticing acorns falling around me, and I looked up to see this:

Holy Moly those are huge balls. I had no idea squirrel balls were so large. Like I said, who ever sees a squirrel from below? Pound for pound, a squirrel must have more ball than most creatures. Sure, they're no bush cricket, but they are large. Then again, perhaps that's not that usual for a rodent, and of course squirrels are just rats with better PR so . . .

The Story Of Kawama

Every good estate needs a quirky name, preferably one that features the letter "K." As such, there is John D. Rockefeller's Kykuit and Eleanor Roosevelt's Val-Kill.

Kykuit is a Dutch word for "lookout." Indeed, the Rockefeller estate looks out on the Hudson Valley up in Westchester County. I think Val-Kill was also Dutch — at least it sounds Dutch. I guess it's a stream that went through the property near Hyde Park.

I don't believe the word "Kawama" has a Dutch origin. According to the key chain that was attached to the master set of keys when we bought the estate, "Kawama" is an orange liqueur produced in Mexico:

No matter, we were destined to name the estate "Kawama." And we have stuck to Kawama, even though for a few weeks I had to look at the key chain every time I wanted to say the name — in those first couple of weeks, we lived at "Kamama," "Kawawa" and even "Wakawa." What's that Shakira song? Waka Waka? We lived there, too.

I thought it would be easier to learn more about Kawama Orange Liqueur, but I'm stuck. There seems to be a distributor in Miami that imports it, although the product now seems to be called "Kawama Orange & Cognac Liqueur." I'm not sure I want this beverage to become the house drink but I would like to try it. Maybe I'll call around.