Sharon, We have squirrels that do the exact same thing that you and Scott have noticed. There is one squirrel in particular who is a creature of habit and I will see him in the same spot in the yard at the same time about 6 days out of 7. I'd never realized they were such creatures of habit until I started watching him the last couple of years. We used to have a dog that chased the squirrels endlessly and she kept them completely out of the yard and away from the garden. Since her death a few years back, the squirrels have returned in full force, and our other dogs are too old and lazy to chase them out of the yard. 8maryann, I had a neighbor in Fort Worth who fought the squirrels hard like you do, and he even wrapped flashing on 8' of the trunk (he started with 2' and when that didn't work, he just kept adding it higher up the trunk) and the squirrels still got all his pecans most years. I think he finally decided they were sitting on the roof of his house and jumping to the trees. Based on the distance, you wouldn't think they could have made that far of a jump but they did. Blue jays are not as much of a problem for my pecan trees in the yard as they are for you, but we have about 10 acres of woodland to the north and west of the yard and there's a lot of native pecan trees in that woodland, so maybe the blue jays are eating those nuts. Pecans used to be a major crop in our county and some of the orchards had those canons that set off a blast of noise every so often to keep the birds and varmints out of the trees. I'm not sure if the noise from the cannons annoyed the squirrels and birds enough to keep them out of the trees, but the sound certainly annoyed some of us humans who had to listen to it all day long. I haven't heard one of those in years now, and I'm not complaining! I think the squirrels must just prefer the pecans to acorns because I won't see them gathering acorns in the fall until they've run out of pecans to find, eat and bury. With our fruit trees, the squirrels won't touch a plum at all until the peaches all have been harvested (by either us or the squirrels). Once the peaches are gone, it is open season on the plums. For whatever reason, squirrels seldom bother the figs, although various birds will eat the figs if they get a chance to do so. I put out cracked corn for the doves, and the crows come to eat it. Consequently, the crows don't seem to bother the pecans much. My favorite thing, though, is that being fed cracked corn makes the crows very territorial. That works to our advantage, because we let our chickens out of the fenced/roofed chicken run to free range for a portion of every day, Hawks try to prey upon our chickens, but the crows will relentlessly chase away the hawks all day long. In our case, the crows are the lesser of two evils, and probably are the reason we rarely lose a chicken to a hawk. Our native pecan trees produce relatively small nuts, but their flavor is superb, and I'd rather have them than larger nuts (with less flavor) from some of the commercial varieties of pecans. Dawn

Sorry about the late response, I read your message just now. Anyway, if you are still interested, I would recommend Agroforestry Research Trust, they have an excellent selection of plants. Nikitas Here is a link that might be useful: Agroforestry Research Trust

I'll hopefully save someone the search. If I try it, if anything I'll add MORE salt. I love a sweet/salty combination, so I'd definitely want to make sure there's a noticeable salty component. sephia_wa on Sunday at 3:51PM If you wanted to use up those last 2 cups of pecans, I make something called Pecan Crack. It's called "Crack" because it's so addicting. - 2 tbs. butter or margarine - 1 cup pecan halves - ½ cup sugar - ½ tsp. vanilla extract - ¼ tsp salt (however I do NOT add the salt in mine) Grease an aluminum foil lined baking sheet. Melt butter in a heavy 10’ skillet over med-lo heat. Stir in pecans and sugar. Cook 7-9 minutes, stirring constantly until sugar is syrupy and golden brown and nuts are toasted. (300’ on a candy thermometer). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Immediately spread candy mixture in a thin layer on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Cool completely, then break into small clusters. Yield: ½ lb candy. Do not double recipe

These would be pecans that have dropped prematurely due to insect or scab damage. I have no good suggestions on cleaning them up, but the cause is possible scab (they will be mostly black), weevil, casebearer, or stink bugs. If you have many mature pecans with little holes that start falling in Oct-Nov, then weevil is causing these tp fall and you can get some circle traps to stop most of this damage.