I negotiated a deal with the squirrels to only take their fair share of my fruit. At first they kept their promise and life was good; I ate persimmons, peaches, tomatoes, cherries, strawberries and pears. Then they got greedy and broke their agreement, taking most of the fruit. I told my wife, "I'll show these squirrels who is boss here." She smirked! I bought a live trap and caught and relocated 13 squirrels in one year. The squirrels snitched on me and the local police told me it was unlawful to relocate squirrels even to a new beautiful woods. My wife smirked! I caught 7 more and drowned them in a garbage can; I smirked at the ones that got away. The squirrels obviously negotiated a deal with the crows and ground squirrels because they started taking more fruit. I bought a pellet rifle. I told my wife, "I'll show these squirrels who is the smarter!" My wife said, "That ship has sailed." What did she mean by that?

Well, I kinda like the "Lots of Love" idea. Heh. That year I had such great success with my candy onions -- actually great success with ANY onion -- I did something that I don't know if it helped or not. I soaked them in Jerry Baker's "Root Revival Tonic": 1 tbsp of mild dish soap, 1/4 cup of strong tea and 1 tbsp epsom salt, mixed well into 1 gallon of water. This is from his book, "Old-Time Gardening Wisdom". I had used it to soak some bushes I was planting and instructions said up to 24 hours. I didn't soak the onions in it but about an hour. They made the water really "onioney" and I was worried I'd made a big mistake. But I set them out right away and those were the best and biggest onions I'd ever grown. I also didn't set them out till April 15, the approximate date of our last frost. We got a frost after that and I went out and covered them all. What concerns me is that sometimes the frost will cause the onions to think they've had another winter, and that triggers bolting to seed. Last year, I didn't soak the onions. I put the ones I got from Dawn out immediately, which was sometime in early March, I think. And then I planted Southern Belle Red later on. Of course it was a weird year and so hard to judge because of that. Got some decent-sized onions from Dawn's plants, but nothing like the previous year, others stayed small and a few of them went to seed. The Southern Belles that were planted later didn't bolt to seed but they didn't grow any, either. I dug them back up and will be planting them around April 15 to see if they'll go ahead and do anything. This year, whatever I end up getting, I'm going to try the soak again, and wait till April 15. I know this goes against standard practice, but it did work for me that one year. Maybe I was just having "Dumb cluck luck". We'll see what happens.

It's like dealing with deer or rabbits... if you reduce or drive away the local population, it will just be replenished from the surrounding area. It is an ongoing battle. Mine is with a colony of ground hogs on a nearby property; the young adults go out in search of their own territory, which periodically means moving into my property. Fortunately, they seem to be easier to trap than squirrels. Squirrels are not as much of a problem here, since food is plentiful in the landscape; but every once in awhile they take bites out of my young squash. Regardless of what bait I used, I was never able to trap them - until last summer. Purely by accident, I left the trap open (but empty) just outside the garden fence... and caught a squirrel. Thinking about it, I've observed animals patrolling the edge of the fence, so it made sense that they would just walk right in. I caught a couple more squirrels, a ground hog, and a couple rabbits, the same way. But it seems that all animals patrol the edge of the fence. I caught a possum, and (carefully) released it. Then I caught an adult raccoon, and letting an angry, growling, full-grown raccoon out of a live trap is not an easy task. Not sure I want to repeat that experience, but I'll risk it if the ground hogs move back in.

I'm not Stephanie. That article was in The Horse this week. And when I got to the "putter" part I thought of you guys! Do I have to list all the critters who live here? You'll know I'm nuts. But I'm WAY down on numbers compared to a few years ago. I did take in a starving horse last fall but I'm trying not to have so many to support. Social Security only goes so far and he ate me out of house and barn last winter. He's on grass now and I'm trying to regroup. One of my ancient barn cats is in the house being treated for an abscess/eye infection. I always keep a course of antibiotics on hand because no one ever needs to see the vet unless it's Saturday night or Sunday. She's doing better and I've contemplated making her a house cat but I'll have to see how she feels about that. Maybe for next winter. She's so old I don't even remember when she was born. And I know my Cockatoo will not be in favor of that idea. I'll have to watch like a hawk so the bird doesn't kill the cat. Today I am puttering in the garage. It has gotten way out of control these past couple of years. I don't know what the attraction is but the chickens are determined to be in there with me. I've shooed them out a hundred times and they just keep coming back. Close the door, I guess. I start cleaning house and everything I don't know what to do with ends up there "for now". There's a genealogy webinar at 1 so I thought I'd stop for lunch and watch that while I eat. I came in here to click the link; they want you to sign in half an hour ahead of time and if you wait until the last minute sometimes it's full. And there were all the new messages on this post!