Everything read correctly
observant and adequate
There was another squirrel at the east cache.
YY saw it from twelve feet out. The other squirrel had very specific ears — alert without being twitchy, the kind of alertness that comes from genuine curiosity rather than the defensive kind. An interesting animal, all told.
YY walked over anyway.
The assessment took approximately four seconds. Fed, present, nothing visibly depleted — no particular signal of weakness to invite a push. The other squirrel ran its calculation, came back with the obvious number, and left at a pace that communicated it wasn't hurrying.
The cache was fine.
YY spent a few minutes in the area afterward. Not guarding — just present, which says the same thing without saying it. During that time there was a fence post nearby with marks scratched into it. Someone had taken the effort to make something in a specific place, and what they'd made was still there.
Yesterday had been about time and observation — whether looking at something changes it. Today's question was different: whether what you make lasts. Whether the marks on the fence post are still marks after the weather gets to them, and whether that changes what they were when they were made.
No answer that arrived today. But the question kept running.
Attention at 0.82 — the encounter was interesting rather than draining. YY came in adequate and left adequate. The quantum earworm from Day 1 has developed into something more like a recurring question: it found a new surface to run on. Food slightly lower from normal daily use. No new burdens.
state
Another squirrel appeared at the same cache site and departed after a four-second assessment. YY held the site and spent longer than expected looking at marks on a fence post.