From our station in the sunroom where we are attending to the needs of our ailing Dogga, we have a clear view to the potting bench and garden. Most of the herbs are gone. We’ve pulled the mint, parsley and cilantro. The jalapeno peppers are done. Yet, even though we are at the end of the growing season, the tomato plant is still producing like gangbusters. Multiple green tomato clusters populate the vine.
The squirrels could not be more excited. Each day we watch them scurry along the fence line, drop down to the bench, creep to the edge, make a carefully considered selection, and pluck a tomato. They hop to the deck rail with the newly picked tomato-prize and gnaw the top off right before our eyes.
Kerri delights in their scoundrel tomato raids. “Isn’t that cute!” she exclaims. I used to have visions of springing out the door, yelling a manly, “Hey!” In my fantasy the squirrel drops the tomato and flees but in reality, the one time I sprang out the door, the squirrel took a bite and held up the tomato as if saying, “Hey, neighbor!” They know I am all bark.
I am my father’s son. As a boy he grew up hunting squirrels, not for fun but out of necessity. As an older man who was no longer in poverty, he couldn’t bear to hurt a squirrel. When the varmints ate the peaches from his prized tree he live-trapped them and took them to a local park. He kept a BB gun in the garage to scare them away, never aiming to hit them. When his sight went bad he accidentally nicked one and his eyes were misty with regret for the rest of the day. That was the day he retired his BB gun. I know that if my manly yell caused the tomato-robbing-squirrel to fall and break a leg, I’d never forgive myself.
All of that is to say that I am secretly pleased that the squirrels see right through me. Now, as we sit with Dogga in the sunroom and watch the daily raid on the tomato plant, when Kerri delights in the squirrels’ successful raid and says, “Isn’t that cute,” I can honestly reply, “Yes. Yes it is.” When the squirrel holds up the spoils we exchange a quick man-nod as if to say, “Hey, neighbor!”
read Kerri’s blogpost about TOMATO SQUIRRELS
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