Murphy versus Squirrels: A bloodbath ensues.

I have a garden. A beautiful, wonderful little garden that's already producing little roma tomatoes and lettuce, and has peppers and tomatoes and beets and onion and squash. It's wonderful, and I worked very hard on it. I also have a dog, and chuckled to myself watching the neighbors put up chicken wire around their garden to keep the squirrels out. I had a holier than thou attitude and thought "Ha, my dog ensures squirrels stay out of my yard."

Wrong. My dog's a lazy butthead and couldn't care less if squirrels are on our property? Birds he would tear to pieces, going first for the neck, but squirrels he looks at with indifference. In fact, the other day I let him out in our backyard and a squirrel ran across our fence, down into the yard, across the yard and up the other side of the fence to get into the neighbors yard. All the while Murphy just watched with disinterested curiosity as he laid on the cement patio and let that little bastard onto our property.

I woke up the other morning to discover the squirrels had finally discovered we too had a garden. They ate my lettuce and the lone roma on the plant, and dug lots of little holes everywhere in the dirt. I knew a bloodbath was going to ensue as I waged war against these tricky little bastards. I have learned from watching my neighbors garden that chicken wire isn't sufficient, so I set out to find a new way to get rid of these thieving rats with bushy tails.

I racked my brain on my options. Traps might work for one or two, but these guys are plentiful in a city, and I'm not really a fan of letting them loose when they're angry at me. Poison's just not okay, especially because I had a dog. A BB gun might work, but my uncle once tried shooting a squirrel with a BB gun and ended up lodging a BB in his finger, had to go to the hospital and file a gunshot wound report, and ended up getting fined for shooting a gun in city limits. I'd heard about cayenne pepper or crushed red peppers in the soil as being a deterrent, but wasn't fully convinced. My housemate had mentioned once that dried blood is the route to go.

So, I trekked on over to my local garden supply store, dog in tow. If he wasn't going to get rid of them, he at least had to come with me to get the stuff that would work. I was quite excited carrying my bag o' blood back to my house, thinking about how I was going to win this war against the squirrels. I had wondered how this stuff would work, but wasn't too concerned. I'd read up on a bit, and it was said that the dried blood smells like dead animals to the squirrels which keeps them out. Great, I thought. Maybe it will keep my dog out of the garden too. I opened up the bag with some vigor and started pouring it onto the soil, when the wall of scent smacked me un-apologetically in the face.

On the plus side, I think the squirrels are going to stay out of the garden. On the negative side, apparently dried blood smells like dead animals to humans too. On the even worse side, dried blood smells like a dog bone to my dog.

I can't decide who won this war, but I somehow think we've all lost except the dog.

Updates!

I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. I know, I'm a terrible person. Anyways, I have lots of stories to update my 2 loyal readers with, and I promise I will write a few posts soon enough. Don't worry - I'm keeping track of the stories. Soon to come!