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  • Author Author: ralphjy
  • Date Created: Date Created
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  • Comments 17 comments
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Bad Squirrel

ralphjy

It's officially spring and like a good Oregonian, my wife has been planting some seeds to get starts for summer vegetables.  We've finally gotten a stretch of sunny days in the 70s (F) , so she put her seed pots on the front step to get the morning sun.  Yesterday she noticed that the dirt in the pots was disturbed and the seeds were missing.  She suspected that the local squirrels might have done it and I was surprised when she put out new seeds this morning without adding any protection..

 

While we were out walking the granddog (only 5 1/2 miles today), I got an alert from my doorbell camera.  I didn't see anything amiss on my phone, but I checked a full resolution picture when we got home and something caught my eye.  I've marked it in the image below.

image

 

I checked playback around that time on the NVR and it indeed was a squirrel!

 

 

We live in a medium density suburban neighborhood, but we have a fair number of animals because of the numerous greenspaces.  I've had mice, rats, rabbits, raccoons, and a large assortment of squirrels and birds in my yard.  And we've had coyotes and deer roaming the streets.  Last year we had a problem with tomatoes and cucumbers being eaten in our garden and one day we were surprised to see a squirrel eating a cucumber!  Of course we didn't get any photo evidence, so no one believed us.  The only picture I got was of the cucumber, but I didn't have dental records to incriminate the squirrel image.

image

 

My wife is happy that we have video evidence this time.  And it reminded me that I wanted to reprint the mounting plate on the doorbell camera to move the view to the left and down a bit.

Parents

  • What a beautiful garden space you have!  We are locked in a constant struggle with our squirrels, as they are either invading the garden (ground squirrels) or trying to access the bird feeders (tree squirrels).  I like to play up my frustrations with theses squirrels (like using my cheap and useless BB gun to scare away squirrels, none have been harmed) to amuse my kids and grandkids, as result I get a much of squirrel videos, squirrel themed merchandise (mostly coffee mugs) and even a nice collection of books on protecting gardens and bird feeders from squirrels.

     

    Keep up the good fight!

  • in reply to genebren

    Thanks Gene - my wife is the gardener and she does get compliments from the neighborhood.  I've noticed a disturbing trend this year (luckily not on my street) to install artificial turf.  I guess it looks real once the weeds grow through image.

     

    My neighbor shot a rat in his backyard from a second story window with a pellet gun.  Not sure what to think about that other than he's a good shot.  And one less rat to worry about...

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  • in reply to genebren

    Thanks Gene - my wife is the gardener and she does get compliments from the neighborhood.  I've noticed a disturbing trend this year (luckily not on my street) to install artificial turf.  I guess it looks real once the weeds grow through image.

     

    My neighbor shot a rat in his backyard from a second story window with a pellet gun.  Not sure what to think about that other than he's a good shot.  And one less rat to worry about...

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