Summer Garden Invaders

Last summer, tree rats were in the midst of a hostile take-over of my garden. They ate my plums, my apples, tomatoes and a baby chick.  They dropped from the rain gutters to the ground by my feet and scuttled off in the dry leaves, leaving me standing with my heart pounding.  They built nests in the hen house -- they were beyond brazen.  And, I was beyond angry.

I tried every version of trap known to man.  I planted mint around the base of every fruit tree (they supposedly don't like the smell of mint and I really don't care if I've got an invasive mint problem in the orchard; it smells great underfoot).

The nests have disappeared from the hen house (having fourteen chickens to share space with has probably helped there).  I lost some fruit to birds, but not to rats.  Knock on wood, my tomatoes are getting plump and starting to think about turning red.  The trap in my tool shed sits empty, with its bait ball of peanut butter untouched.

The rats aren't completely gone.  I've seen one or two; but it isn't an epidemic.

Ground squirrels are out in full force and, while I hate their burrows and their thieving ways, they don't creep me out like rats.

There is a family of ground squirrels living in the pile of compost I have in a corner of my garden.  I can see them from the window, the little ones wrestling and tumbling down the pile, the older ones scaling the fence and surveying the garden from a fence post.  And, when Richard was visiting last week, he caught a squirrel raiding the bird feeder.

I was very careful when I set up the bird feeder.  There is a wobbly upside down cone on the pole that holds the feeder, so squirrels can't climb up.  It is in an open area, not close to the fence or a tree branch.  The feeder is full of black oil sunflower seeds and the birds spill quite a bit on the ground.  Mostly its empty shells, but sometimes they drop entire seeds.  And, some of those seeds sprouted in the spring and gave me wonderful sunflowers in the garden.  One of the squirrels climbed up a sunflower stalk, and when it bent over under the squirrels weight, it launched itself up to the feeder.  The squirrel couldn't fit on the ledge, so he dangled hanging by his front paws, and gorging on seeds.
"I couldn't believe the strength of the little guy," Richard said to me. "He was dangling there for a long time."

I couldn't believe how many seeds were gone.  I cut down the sunflower closest to the feeder and crossed my fingers that there aren't any acrobats in the family.

Baby Squirrels

This morning, after racing through the girls pasture and flinging their manure into the cart - or over the fence - I made a quick stop in my garden, before changing for work.  Last weekend, I planted a new perrenial garden bed and I wanted to check on how the plants were doing.

Brett dug the holes for me.  Cody dug a few too.

Then I cruised by the large raised planter that I filled with flowers last month.  Squirrels promptly ate all the pansy flowers, then the pansy plants, and then started in on my snapdragons.  Even the artichoke plant wasn't safe.  I covered the planter with wire mesh and managed to protect the remaining survivors -- but the plants were getting smashed by the wire so I took it off last week.

The plants were still there, as well as a couple holes where the squirrels had buried chicken scratch that they steal from the neighboring chicken run.  As I stood there, I heard squeaking -- squeaking like an animal was stuck.  The sound came from the hen house.  It sounded like a bird but it was coming from the ground.

I looked closer, and there was definitely something wedged between the hen house baseboard and the side of the shed.  My first thought was "frog" -- the little guys are everywhere this time of year; climbing the garage door (and dropping at my feet) and hiding in water buckets.  But no, this was not a frog -- and then it squeaked again.  I leaned closer, putting my eye close to the gap, and realized it had fur... and little squirrel ears ... and there were more squirming bodies inside, below the crevice, in a nest dug out under the hen house.

If you zoom in on the last picture, you can kind of see the one that was squeaking.  Hopefully, his mama will pull him back down into the nest.

I don't like ground squirrels; they eat my orchard fruit, my pansies and my tomatoes.  They also dig burrows in the pastures which is a danger to the horses.  We worry about the horses breaking a leg if they step in a hole while playing.  I had a watering can, full of water, in my hand when I found the  baby squirrels and I briefly considered drowning the babies (see how much I hate squirrels?).  But then I realized that I couldn't kill a baby animal, even a squirrel.  So I took pictures instead.

Whose Garden Is This, Anyway?

The assault on my garden started in early summer.  Our weeping Santa Rosa plum tree had a good crop of plums, starting to turn from hard green spheres to color.  Standing at the kitchen sink one morning, I noticed that the tree was black -- full of crows; so many that you couldn't see the tree.  When they left, there were no more plums.

Currently, there are two pumpkins growing.  We'll see if they make it to October.

My tomatoes have all been taken by squirrels and racoons.  From four tomato plants, I have harvested fewer than ten tomatoes all season.

First the critters ate all the nectarines, and then they started on the peaches.

I was able to pick four peaches -- before they were fully ripe.  The rest disappeared.

I was told that gophers don't like peonies.  They lied.

We didn't get to enjoy any grapes this summer either.

We live in the mountains; we are surrounded by wildlife; I get that.  I don't mind sharing, really I don't.  But, I would like to get a little bit of the fruit and vegetables from the garden.