May 31, 2005
Framed
People who have been reading this blog for a while will remember that last year I was at war with my neighbor's cat, who I thought was eating my seedlings and destroying my garden. Those neighbors have moved out, and a new gardening season has started, and I have come to find out that the cat was framed.
Once again, my seedlings are being eaten, and this time much quicker (only a few hours after planting). I also had the tops of all of my annual flowers knocked off. I researched online and found that these symptoms usually point to one thing - squirrels. From my mom's experience with her birdfeeders, I know how sneaky squirrels can be, so I believed it. I sprayed my leaves with a mixture of chili pepper and water, put birdseed away from my garden to lure them, and bought this stuff called Shake Away that is a powdered form of predator urine that is supposed to scare them away. (Patrick said I should just get the cat to pee in my garden and save the money...)
After a couple of hours of planting and mulching and putting out all of my squirrel deterrents, I sat at my window watching to see if it worked. What I ended up witnessing was not a squirrel attack at all, but more of a Hithcock-ian assault on my garden. A nasty, crafty starling swooped down and pulled off the top of my tomato plant before I even knew it!
I screamed through the window and Patrick ran out and scared it off and then sat in the back yard with Byron in his harness keeping the bird at bay while I ran to the hardware store to buy chicken wire. Back home, I proceded to form cages around all of my seedlings (of course withour gloves or long sleeves, which was dumb, and I ended up with arms all scratched up like when I was a sculptor) while the starling and his friends chattered at me from the neighbor's roof and the power lines, alerting all of their friends that I was taking away their buffet feast.
As of this morning, the plants are all still there. Hopefully the plot was foiled. I do feel bad for blaming the cat last year, who probably wasn't interested in the garden at all, but very interested in the birds in the garden. |
Once again, my seedlings are being eaten, and this time much quicker (only a few hours after planting). I also had the tops of all of my annual flowers knocked off. I researched online and found that these symptoms usually point to one thing - squirrels. From my mom's experience with her birdfeeders, I know how sneaky squirrels can be, so I believed it. I sprayed my leaves with a mixture of chili pepper and water, put birdseed away from my garden to lure them, and bought this stuff called Shake Away that is a powdered form of predator urine that is supposed to scare them away. (Patrick said I should just get the cat to pee in my garden and save the money...)
After a couple of hours of planting and mulching and putting out all of my squirrel deterrents, I sat at my window watching to see if it worked. What I ended up witnessing was not a squirrel attack at all, but more of a Hithcock-ian assault on my garden. A nasty, crafty starling swooped down and pulled off the top of my tomato plant before I even knew it!
I screamed through the window and Patrick ran out and scared it off and then sat in the back yard with Byron in his harness keeping the bird at bay while I ran to the hardware store to buy chicken wire. Back home, I proceded to form cages around all of my seedlings (of course withour gloves or long sleeves, which was dumb, and I ended up with arms all scratched up like when I was a sculptor) while the starling and his friends chattered at me from the neighbor's roof and the power lines, alerting all of their friends that I was taking away their buffet feast.
As of this morning, the plants are all still there. Hopefully the plot was foiled. I do feel bad for blaming the cat last year, who probably wasn't interested in the garden at all, but very interested in the birds in the garden. |