Green thumb: win (sort of)

Well aside from the aggressive insects and physical obstacles to actually planting things in the ground, I have had some mini sucesses in my quest to grow things onsite.  I had a big strong man plant some fruit trees for me - dwarf peach and nectarine.  Kane, the artichoke-stealing doberman, took it upon himself to personally see to it that the nectarine tree is adequately watered, and therefore, as expected, there is no fruit and the trunk has turned a strange shade of charred black.  The peach tree, however, is doing pretty well...

They are almost ripe enough to eat, so I am hoping they remain little tree ninjas for now (more on this later).

I also have a nice little deck garden going.  In the past I usually throw in some cucumbers, jalapenos, sweat peas, strawberries, and tomatos.

Deeeelish.  Anyway, let's discuss what happened this year.  I have a ROUS infestation.  I swear, the squirrels in my yard are so damn huge that they can't possibly be purebred....right now I am debating whether they are hybrids made with the help of a junkyard dog, or possibly a very aggressive miniature donkey.  They don't just nibble the food....these things actually harvest it.  I saw one pick a giant tomato off my plant and throw it over his shoulder into a fireman carry before sauntering back up the closest tree.  What went wrong?  Why could I get to the point of harvesting luscious deck goodness last year without a scrap for myself this year?  Lucy.  Yes, remember that dog that wouldn't save me from my housefire?  She passed away earlier this year, and apart from leaving me absolutely heartbroken, that unfortunate event has also led the squirrels to double in size.  You see, Lucy was a treeing walker coonhound, and therefore naturally will follow the squirrel up the tree and keep them up there for as long as necessary, and when she was around, the squirrels decided that the deck bounty was not worth the anxiety.

"Do you see that thing that looks like a steak?  It used to be a squirrel." -Lucy



"This is the prison that I built for the squirrels. I like to poke my head in to laugh at them MWAH HA Haaa" -Lucy

Now The Goose is gone, and Kane, though he looks scary enough to guard the gates of hell, is completely incompetent when it comes to killing anything that dogs are supposed to kill.  His usual strategy when he sees one of these fat monsters is to run, apply the brakes a little too late, and fall down 10 feet of deck stairs, and then run around the yard barking for 5 minutes looking at the ground.  The squirrels don't even run for the tree.  They slowly waltz at this point, AFTER Kane skids past.  This is why they are the size of pekingnese.

"The beach is that way." -Kane

I have resorted to desperate measures including lots and lots of cayenne pepper all over my deck and railings.  One time I ran out and used garlic, assuming that vampires and giant squirrels are similar in a lot of ways.  I have also been known to burst out of the backdoor yelling things in an attempt to cause some rodent PTSD.  That worked for a while, but then the squirrels showed their true colors.  They like to stretch out and nap on the deck railings now.  They mock me.  Even worse, they have turned Kane.  Now, the first thing Kane does when he goes outside is eat my strawberries and clean off the tomato plants.  WTF giant squirrel mafia?! As you can tell, the battle is raging, and I will not give up.

Things I never see anymore thanks to the squirrel conspiracy.