Yes, well, this weather is making us all a little squirrely, but this post is about actual squirrels.
I purposely bought bird feeders that are squirrel proof because any weight more than birds on the feeder closes down the food openings. One of the feeders hangs from a bracket right outside a window.
The squirrels figured out that if they scale the side of the house and crawl up the screen, they can get to the feeder. Of course, they couldn’t get to the seeds. With incredible ingenuity, at least one of them figured out that she had to keep her weight off the feeder in order to keep the food accesses open. (I really don’t know if it was a “she” but I’m choosing to call it that.) So, she hooked the claws of her back legs into the screen, held onto the bracket with one paw, and used the other to scrape out the seeds. When I tapped on the window to scare her, not only did she rip the screen, she peed on the window.
It wasn’t bad enough that the squirrels had eaten every budding bulb I planted last fall, but now one has torn the screen. Enough.
My brother has a “have-a-heart” trap, and, so far, he managed to trap four squirrels and take them to a field about three miles from us. To get back here, they’d have to go across several roads, around a small lake, and through some pretty thick woods.
Today, there was one squirrel climbing up the screen again. We don’t know if it was one of those he trapped or if there’s some kind of weird “hundredth monkey” squirrel thing going on.
Whatever it is, we are not giving up. I told my brother, the next time he catches one, take it to the other side of the mountain and let it loose there. Of course, the world is full of squirrels, and I’m sure others will take their places.
I have tried every spray on the market to keep those critters off my budding plants. Nothing seems to deter them.
Of course, there are deer around as well. Three of them were sauntering across our septic field just this afternoon. I bought some packs of coyote urine that’s supposed to keep them away from the garden. We’ll see.
I might have to accept the fact that, unless I invest in very expensive fencing, my garden will feed everyone but us all summer.