Squirrel!
The girls and I enjoyed a lazy evening tonight, watching Up. That movie never fails to bring me to tears. I'm such a sap.
These slow, unscheduled moments have been precious and few at our house. And from listening to friends and reading blogs, rare at others' households as well.
Like this industrious little critter I caught on camera this morning, we've been scurrying about with our fall activities. Raking fallen leaves and pine needles. Many, many bags of leaves. Last weekend, Will planted 130 tulip bulbs. As he dug into the earth, he discovered a little cache of buried acorns. Poor squirrel. A few meals lost.
We're hoping that we won't be providing a lavish bulb banquet for our neighborhood critters. So we're trying a tip I'd heard. Plant the tulip bulbs as usual. Add a layer of dirt. Then place chicken wire over the planted bulbs. Add a little more dirt and mulch. The chicken wire should hinder the squirrels from digging up the bulbs. Last spring, we had a pitiful tulip showing. A few scattered flowers here and there, the remnants of larger plantings. If the chicken wire works, I hope to have some lovely swathes of flowers. We'll see.
Dreaming of spring tulips will brighten those cold, dull winter days. And if our yard is any indication, the squirrels have a very poor memory of buried acorns. They won't miss them! We are pulling little oak tree starts all spring.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right about the squirrels. Ours are all fat and sassy, probably from gorging on our tomatoes all summer.
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