Having a blast!

The East Coast braces for yet another major download of snow - 10 inches alone expected in New York, with additional frozen blitz expected to slam an already wounded Washington, D.C., area.

But let's take comfort in the fact that squirrels - most of them, anyway - are going to be ok. That was the reassurance offered by a Washington Post article a couple of days ago after that city started to emerge from near-suffocation by this record-breaking blanket.

The snow will blast many of us - and we are worried about ourselves as well as the local wildlife - but squirrels are, after all, hardy. They can hunker down, nibble on the snacks they have put away in their nests, or just sleep until the Big Melt.

That's a good thing.

And yet let humans try that and they're called slackers and slugs. Who stores almonds in the cushions of their couch, or broccoli bits beneath the throw pillows? Who sleeps well past the noon hour? Squirrels - and they get away with it. They don't need to wake up and shovel, or summon a plow, in order to get to work. When they wake up (if they choose to wake up, that is), they're already on the job!

Then there's this squirrel.

Captured just the other day by the well-trained lens of a friend in Pennsylvania, this ambitious squirrel is actually in the middle of doing something most weary motorists would not attempt: Commuting to work. The squirrel seems to have little need of a snow plow or a tow truck. Or, for that matter, even two pairs of skis. (Click here for the entire sequence of pictures.)

So as half the nation readies for yet another blustery winter assault, and as Chicago, Minneapolis and other parts of the U.S. Midwest take stock of the precipitation that has already fallen, you can't help but be just a little bit jealous. It's blowing and snowing out there, and the squirrels are having a blast!