Brick it on
Monday July 26th 2010, 11:14 pm
Filed under: Wildlife

My hydrangea has been filling out nicely and has six heads of flowers now.

I wondered where the little plastic plant tag that came with it had gone off to. Huh. I had carefully kept it there in the ground so I could buy more of the same variety if it flourished as I’d hoped. (E., this is the one you gave me last year and it is the perfect plant in the perfect spot.)

The brick o’doom? There were two like that made of a calcium base that John had bought for his forge he’d turned the old grill into.  They’re lightweight, and lately the squirrels have been pushing them around: I put them back in their places in the circle, I wake up the next morning and this one’s two feet over that-a-way and that one’s sideways over there, and they’re a little more gnawed on. Wonder Bread! Grows strong bodies twelve ways!

Remember this? That was just the start. For three Wednesdays, I found some odd small lightweight thing stuck in the same place in the yard, in front of the barbecue grill and that circle of bricks. Each time it had not been there the day before. Some creature out there had developed a fetish for stashing its treasures in that one spot. (Oh. Wait. Remember the squirrel with the whipped cream? That’s where she’d eaten most of the thing, before she finished it off in the spot where I took the picture. Ah, maybeee…?)

And then last Wednesday it didn’t happen. I was actually disappointed.

My squirrels must have gotten wind of that, because on Saturday I found the missing hydrangea plant tag–it had been carefully deposited in that spot and a brick moved over towards it.

So am I expected to light up the grill and fire up an offering to the squirrel gods with it, or what?


6 Comments so far
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as long as we’re not offering up a squirrel on the grill I suppose

our squirrels are have a snit because the fence between our neighbor’s property and ours is down right now — we’re rebuilding a new one, but right now they have to run on the ground — right at dog level!

Comment by Bev 07.27.10 @ 6:59 am

Our resident squirrel has chewed on the antlers hanging on the fence until he has almost gone through one side and now is well started on the other side. It will be funny seeing the top half fall off, when he gets clear through it.

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 07.27.10 @ 7:10 am

My mother had an ongoing war with the squirrels who kept eating the avocados from her tree. We had the biggest, sleekest, FATTEST squirrels in the neighborhood, and when one would jump on the roof, it sounded as if a boulder fell from the sky. Right now, I have squirrels playing chase all over the camphor tree in the front yard. They start at oh dark thirty, and keep it up all day long, when the parrots arrive to make things noisy. Ah, wilderness — and I live in the city!

Comment by Patricia Day 07.27.10 @ 8:16 am

I could loan you Sissy. Or Gretchen. Gretchen very nearly caught a squirrel again the other day, but I really think they’re just helping her burn off energy.

Comment by Channon 07.27.10 @ 8:37 am

Somebody, something is squirreling things away? So squirrel teeth keep growing! That’s like birds’ beaks, too.

Comment by Don Meyer 07.27.10 @ 9:27 am

Brings to mind the time I found my recently planted parsley seedling in the hollow of the tree my clothesline was attached to. I have no idea what made me look in that hole that day…

Comment by twinsetellen 07.28.10 @ 7:31 pm



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