One of the funniest movie scenes I’ve ever watched is in UP! when a pack of dogs sees a squirrel and Dug the talking dog yells “Squirrel!!!” and bedlam ensues. My own dog, Sadie, doesn’t have a pack to back her up but she pretty much reacts the same way. Which means there’s a lot of bedlam at my house because there are A LOT of squirrels.
One of our favorite spectator sports is to watch squirrels try to get food out of a (very effective) squirrel proof bird feeder. The motorized perch is triggered by weight so if anything heavier than a song bird (read Squirrel!!) tries to get on it, it spins pretty quickly. We have yet to watch a squirrel hang on and spin around like a top and get flung half-way across the yard like they do in the very funny videos but we keep hoping.
You may like these fuzzy little varmints but they have lost their appeal to me. They eat everything! I had all kinds of lovelies on my front porch this past summer and they all but destroyed many of them. Such as Christmas cactus!? They even ate the thick, tough leaves of my orchids. (Did you know that a squirrel’s teeth never stop growing?)
I kept up a running battle with them as they dug up the planter boxes on the porch. Every morning I would sweep up scattered potting soil and the dug up plants and patiently replant everything until I got impatient with being patient. The solution came in the form of chicken wire, which I put over all the planter boxes, cutting holes for the flowers to grow through. So far so good with that one.
I used to grow kale. I used to grow so much kale that instead of asking what we were going to have for dinner, my husband began asking what we were going to have with the kale for dinner. But then the squirrels found my kale plants and ate them to a nub. The next year I planted Swiss chard, which they didn’t seem to like. For a while. And then one morning I walked out to find chard nubs. So now Jack is back to asking what we’re going to have for dinner.
I know everything has a role in the Bigger Picture and that everything deserves their own space and their own life. But does that include everything?? Even Squirrels!!!! Every time I think about it, bedlam ensues.
Last time I had a yard suitable for growing vegetables I planted four varieties of tomatoes. And each time the fruits grew ripe enough to pick, what did I find? One or more squirrel bites — and the critters liked Jubilee as much as Celebrity, Better Boy and Jet Star. Seems that in the eyes of these little invaders, a tomato is a tomato is a tomato.