You Lookin’ at Me?

I haven’t written about squirrels in about, oh, four minutes. But they keep coming up with stuff I can’t ignore. This little guy was running up and down the pole beneath the baffle. Sometimes all we could see was his tail hanging out of the tube, sometimes his head would be poking down. He stopped midway with a “You lookin’ at me?” expression that made my husband run for his camera. This wasn’t the fearful “hide from the hawk” kind of action. Nor was it the “how can I get the seed?” dilemma. He was hanging on with attitude. Expressing entitlement. This baffle was his and we had better not challenge that!

Okay, then. We have lived with this kind of furry brazenness for quite a while now and it doesn’t intimidate us. (Hear that Squirrel?) Only it is coming up to spring and I start to browse the garden catalogs with, if not trepidation, a tad bit of nervousness. Squirrels have challenged everything I have planted. As I mentioned before, we have yet to enjoy one single peach from our lovely little tree. Once a squirrel sat munching on a beautifully formed green pepper while he stared me down. These guys don’t seem to like my basil plants but they dig them up anyway. I could almost imagine them snickering (“Heh, heh, this’ll get her!”) before I bolted out the back door yelling at them to leave those pots alone!

This year I am thinking of trying some patio gardening – blueberries, dwarf cherries, tomatoes. Maybe if I see the critters eyeing the goodies I can move the pots to another location to confuse them. (“As if!”) Did someone say something? Anyway, at the risk of my best laid plans going awry, I will be out there with springtime expectations and squirrel awareness. Those cherries look so darn delicious. This year, squirrels, I will have a harvest! (I hope.)

Any thoughts about squirrel-proofing a garden?