Watch a Midwestern Squirrel Get Really Buzzed on Fermented Pears
Let me tell you a tale that's a teachable moment about leaving aging fruit in your yard. A Midwestern lady was surprised to see a little squirrel had discovered her pears. One problem though. The pears had fermented and the young squirrel was about to go on a very long joy ride that was all captured by a camera on her feeder.
The lady provided a short backstory of exactly what went down in her backyard:
The old pears I left out for the squirrels had apparently fermented. Whoops! He came to the feeder the next morning and was fine!
No squirrels were harmed...but someone's gonna need some coffee in the morning.
I think everyone but me has seen this Midwestern squirrel have a moment except me since it happened way back in 2020 in Minnesota. Nearly 3 million views as of this writing and still going. I did see another similar story shared by Sean Bigay on YouTube in the comments:
I read once about this train that derailed in the Midwest. Nobody hurt, but it took a while to clean up the mess and meanwhile all these apples and ears of corn were left to ferment in the sun. A bunch of bears got a whiff of the bounty and came over for a snack. Next thing was, trains passing through that area had to slow down on account of all the totally blitzed bears sitting dazedly on the tracks.
Excuse me while I go look for video of those bears now.
This fermented pears moment will inspire many moonshiners from back in the day to recall their favorite "recipes". This young squirrel would likely have been a regular customer.