Enemies Mine (Morning Pages 2018 - No. 3)

[ed_rex]

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 ...

Comments

[sabotabby]

I developed a psychotic hatred for squirrels after they killed one of my apple trees. Totally different than my going, "aww, cute" when I see them. It's an interesting contradiction. Same with my love of raccoons that is juxtaposed with my rage at the raccoons that knock over my bins and sample every single hot pepper to see if they hate it as much as the last one they spat out.

The personal really *is* political

[ed_rex]

Raven was complaining about them last year, referring to them as "my enemy", but I really didn't feel for her until I put in some actual labour. Then it got personal, and fast!

We spread quite a lot of chili powder around the surviving plants this morning; here's hoping the little bastards choke on it!

[beable]

The squirrels used to love our bird feeder when I was a kid.
Also, our first dog used to love chasing the squirrels, and it often seemed they were laughing at her because they'd run to the door then run to the tree when she chased them, and they'd laugh at her from the branch with the squirrel feeder.


I used to tell people that my parents had gotten the bird feeder for the squirrels because the dog loved chasing them so much, and one time my dad overheard me telling people that and yelled that the feeder was supposed to have been for birds, not for the squirrels.

and thus was I disillusioned about our backyard squirrel feeder.

Still learning, after all these years

[ed_rex]

All that laughing reminds me of the comic strip, Pooch Cafe, and the ongoing war between Poncho and those monstrous squirrels who are forever taunting him.

I had not, until this weekend, realized that It Is All True.

I've apologized to Raven for not taking her seriously when she called them her Enemy, but not yet enough.