Homeland Security

As a fifth grade teacher one has to daily pray for patience. I like to think of myself as a patient person for most things however everyone has their limit. One thing I have no patience for is thievery. One of the things I was looking forward to last year when we bought our house was having my very own garden. My dad has planted tomatoes for as long as I could remember and now it was my turn to carry on the green thumb tradition not to mention raising my cholesterol by eating BLTs everyday. Being that the previous owners were morons it took a lot of work to get not only where we have our garden into shape but the rest of the yard. Well to make a long story even longer around mothers day we went out and bought all sorts of vegetables for the garden, very exciting. So far we've been able to enjoy the fruits of our labor including eggplant, cherry tomatoes, serranno peppers, sweet peppers and bell peppers not to mention an herb garden. However what I haven't been able to enjoy and which happens to be my favorite of all are those big juicy tomatoes that are just a little smaller than a 12 in softball. You wanna know why??? Well it's because of thieves that most people perceive as "cute" but to me are just rural rats....squirrels.

I haven't been able to enjoy a single big tomato because the second they even turn a shade of orange they've been eaten. And what really pisses me off is they'll more often than not just eat a quarter of half of it...if your going to start eating it at least finish the damn thing! Since my first outpouring of verbal lashings toward the critters when I first spotted one of many destroyed tomatoes I turned to my trusty high velocity pellet gun. To be prepared for situations such as these, I've had it sighted in well enough that I can hit a bottle cap in the garden from our living room window. So lets just say I've been ready to take action for a while now. Now I realize that the squirrels are hungry too so I figured it would be kind on my part to start with the 3 strikes and your out rule. The first time, last week I saw a squirrel I just shot a pellet on the limb it was sitting on and it scattered off. Since then however about 4 delicious tomatoes had been ruined so I was on the warpath but still sticking to my 3 strikes rule. However from my hunting experience, its always when you want animals to appear that they never do. So over the past few days they'd alluded me even on my midnight raids.

Well, last week I had my first real skirmish with these little fellers and put a few rounds from my pellet gun so close to its head it fell of the fence and high tailed it out of there, STRIKE 2. Strike 3 the squirrels won't be so fortunate. Let this be a lesson to all of those squirrels in blogger world, it's on! Also it must be pretty evident that I have far too much time on my hands not only to be perched on my garage, or in my dining room to shoot at squirrels but also to be writing about it. Oh and for those interested I'll be starting a buisness selling authentic Daniel Boone squirrel hats, great for gifts for the holidays!!
Happy HUnting,
Josh