Tag: squirrels

Squirrels Are Getting Out of Hand

Image From Page 282 from Internet Archive Book Images as a member of The Commons on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.

This is the first year of gardening without having a dog. What do the two have to do with one another? Well, read on and learn how a dog lazing in the yard helped the garden’s yield.

It all started this spring when Mike was ranting that the rabbits were eating the peas down to the dirt. (Yes my husband does a great Mr. McGregor of Peter Rabbit fame impression.) However one day when I was going to the garage I spotted the real culprits – not rabbits but baby squirrels.

Cut to earlier this week. I was sitting here at my desk working. My office window was wide open as it was a warm day. Outside I hear messy eating sounds, slurping, smacking… I look and on the end of our fence near my window sat a large squirrel holding one of our good big red tomatoes just eating away. He’d hit a seed pocket and SLURP it up then look up with seeds on his cheeks and a pink tongue darting about to clean his whiskers.

Then yesterday again heading to the garage I scared a passel (yes you fellow Southerners know how many I mean, the rest of you it’s kinda like bunch) of squirrels from the garden. Some chomping roma tomatoes, others nibbling peppers – heck one had the guts to take a whole big bell with him while his compatriot ran off with a green beefsteak tomato!

It’s bad enough that they are raiding us blind of veggies and our rabbit fence does nothing to stop this climbing buggers – but now they are waking me at three am with their arguments, drunken singing or whatever in the hell it is that possesses squirrels to scream and chitter amongest themselves at that hour! I kid you not! I can set my clock by it. There’s barking like calls, then chirping, then screams followed by barking again. Mike says Mr. Squirrel comes home drunk and Mrs. Squirrel is giving him what for. It reminds me of the BBC ad where the ground squirrel keeps barking “Allen, Allen” then he says “That’s not Allen that’s Jack! Jack, Jack, Jack…”

We’ve had issues before with them. One year when our apple tree had hard knotting apples due to the drought, they threw the apples at us. No, really I’m serious. They would sit on the awning over the back door and when we opened the door drop the apple that would roll down and hit us in the head or shoulders. We learned that season to just wait a moment for the apple to fall before proceeding out the door.

Now back to the dog and the garden, you see when we had a dog the squirrel raids were limited to the apple tree. The doggie scent about the yard kept them from dining upon the produce. Now dear Belle is long gone and this is the first summer without Rappy… and the squirrels are taking over.

As I’m typing this I see one run the phone line with a small pepper in his mouth. I hope it’s a ghost pepper and it burns his mouth and gives him heart burn all night long – as long as he doesn’t shout about it at midnight to wake me twice tonight…

August 22, 2014
The Nuthatch Got Away With It

It all started when I wanted a big crisp dinner salad. No dinner salad is complete without a boiled egg.

A bowl of boiled and peeled eggs. Some were too fresh so nicked the whites peeling them.

So as afternoon was rolling in it found me standing over the garbage in the kitchen looking out the window peeling boiled eggs. (I always make few extra). Rappy was out in the backyard and I was enjoying the feeling better stage after a week of being ill.

Red Tulip army stands with the Lemon Custard Tulip army.

I noticed how much more had bloomed and greened since the last time I felt well enough to assess the yard. The red tulips had come out and were flanking the yellow custard ones with the same number.

The perennials in the same bed are greening up nicely. Their winter trash getting cleared away. I wondered if Mike had done it this weekend, I bet he did. The purple tulips are just making a showing as the frilly jonquils are doing their finale. The lilac bush Mike had trimmed so harshly not only has leaves but is getting ready to bloom. The cat nip by the fence has grown in leaps and bounds.

perennials return

Purple Tulips make a showing

Jonquils taking their bow

Lilac buds to bloom

Cat mint on the fence

As I stood there watching the wildlife began its activities with no human clamoring around in the small space. Squirrels perched on the back fence running back and forth to keep an eye on Rappy as she romped in the grass. Soon they took a perch up on the peak of the back neighbor’s garage to survey when it was safe to make a run to the currently full bird feeder.

While they wearily watched Rappy a nuthatch landed in the lilac bush. They always make me laugh because they seem to look at the world upside down for most of the time. He’d dart out and land on the feeder to eat a few bite before the chittering of the squirrels made him dart back to the cover of the heart-shaped lilac leaves. It was so loud I could hear them through the glass of the windows. Greedy buggers didn’t want to share with the tiny nuthatch. But remember there’s always someone bigger than you keeping watch, in this case it was Rappy. The chittering would perk Rappy’s ears. She’d prance around looking for squirrels and they’d go silent hunkering down on the shingles of the neighbor’s roof. Then the nuthatch would dart out again to eat. Once Rappy settled down to watch out the gate the squirrels would scold the nuthatch, it would dart for cover and Rappy would prance about on patrol. Then rinse and repeat again.

Squirrel perch to watch Rappy

The bird feeder from which the nuthatch got away with eating the “squirrel’s” food.

As this went on a large robin bopped into the scene. He wasn’t concerned with Rappy, squirrels in the balcony, or nuthatches nibbling birdseed. He was collecting the dried vines from last year’s morning glories. Then he was back to pull out the dried leaves from the perennials. He made several trips to our yard then up to our garage’s peak the off in a Northernly direction to return shortly and clean up my yard some more. So maybe Mike had some help with that.

This was just a moment peeling eggs and looking out the window. Yet it was just what I needed after a week of being in bed ill. The freshness of it all, the simple fun and quiet activity that goes on all the time unnoticed. I’m not up to a full day’s activity yet but it was good to see it go on.

Now excuse me I’ve a dinner salad to make now that the eggs have chilled. As always it’s good to hear from you. Until next time.

April 13, 2012