The fingertips touched something hard, full, and made her ecstatic!
It's pine nuts! Plump, with the scent of oily red pine nuts! Plus some she couldn't name, with hard shells, like hazelnuts and acorns! A hole-full! This is what the poor squirrel painstakingly accumulated throughout the entire autumn to survive the winter!
A complex surge of mixed ecstasy and slight guilt for the squirrel welled up in her heart.
But the guilt lasted less than a second, replaced by the harsh survival law.
"Sorry, little guy. In this land, the wealth of one species is the lifeline of another."
Vonia began to madly pull out these most generous gifts of nature. She didn't care about the mixed dirt, debris, and squirrel droppings inside.
She fumbled around in the hole, going as deep as possible, not letting any nut escape.
Eventually, she almost emptied the whole tree hole, her clothes' pockets bulging and weighing heavily. She estimated there were at least two pounds of nuts inside!
