Enemies Mine (Morning Pages 2018 - No. 3)

Imagination is necessary but not sufficient

Used to be, I didn't really understand farmers or ranchers, and their psychotic hatred for wolves and other predators.

Until I took up gardening a couple of weeks ago.

Now, I understand a farmer's loathing for all manner of vermin.

In our urban case, number one on our Enemies List is the common black squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis, apparently), a chittering creature whose cuteness is matched only by its pointless destructiveness of All that is Good and Proper to human's urban garden.

Case in point, the savage destruction of some of our newly blossomed tulips (see above).

We went out for dinner last night, and came home to two of our flowers decapitated. Woke up this morning to another, assaulted in the night and left for dead.

And suddenly, I lust after traps and firearms, the better to put an end to the miserable lives of these rodents which don't seem to even eat what they kill.

If this is what gardening is all about, I dunno how long I'll keep at it ...