A retired teacher turned her backyard squirrels into a career

Nancy Rose, a 72-year-old retired high school guidance counselor in Nova Scotia, spends up to 12 hours building miniature sets for the American red squirrels in her backyard, then waits at her window for the actors to arrive. She started more than 15 years ago, after the squirrels began eating nuts from her hand. The unedited photos now appear in her children's book series, The Secret Life of Squirrels, along with calendars and puzzles, and bring in about $50,000 a year. Rose builds every prop from reused or donated materials, including a Styrofoam version of the Canadian Rockies and a working pizza shop. That one took 500 photos before a squirrel finally held the paddle. Her secret is peanut butter, smeared on anything she wants a squirrel to pick up. "Waiting to get the shot I'm after is like meditation," she said. She keeps most of the props because she is not good at getting rid of things.