Clean Up Your Mess

Morgan is our official squirrel watcher. She spends hours on the window seat looking for any sign of the little pests. When she sees one, she alerts the others with an excited bark, then everyone runs barking to the window to see for themselves.

Just say the word squirrel and Morgan races to the window, followed by Samba and Noah. Rob and I have started calling them 'sq' so that she won't notice and start barking, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time till she figures out what we're talking about.

We have this fairly large plum tree in our front yard. For the last couple years it's had a handful of tiny plums that didn't amount to much.

This year it's loaded. We had a nice, rainy summer last year and a mild winter, so the tree is producing a record crop of plums.

The plums are falling off the tree and the whole yard smells sweet from them. The squirrels are climbing the tree and tasting the plums. Many of them have a bite taken .

One squirrel has been bringing his lunch of plums onto the deck to enjoy them in comfort. The trouble is, he leaves a mess behind.

He's leaving pieces of plum and seeds all along the deck rail and on my bench on the porch.


Here he is, full of plums, taking a nap on the deck rail only a couple feet from the window where Morgan is watching. He's free to eat as many plums as he can hold, but don't leave your mess for me to clean up.