Answer to Riddle

As beautiful and graceful as she is,  if  this critter continues to eat my flowers, she will adorn my office wall. This week, I’ve watched her come through the yard. She ate leaves from a mulberry tree. The next day, I saw a pair of them walk through. Since they saw me both times, they skittered off into the wetland. I never saw them eat any  flowers. The next day, I began to notice deer tracks all about the yard, and many of my plants showed signs of deer damage. Allot of mysterious things began to make sense, like a bunch of lobelia plants without buds, Canna Lillie’s with tops missing, and Asiatic Lillie’s with stems clipped.Bambi's Mother

A week ago, my friend Tom called me to come over and dig some hosta plants from his yard. He helped me dig out several varieties. I drove home, split them and planted them around the yard. The plant in this photo is  under the squirrel bungee. Notice how neatly the leaves are clipped from the stems. Next to this one is a different variety that was tasted, and pulled by the roots from the ground.  Evidently, deer do not like the taste of bright green hosta leaves. They love the dark green best. All around the yard, wherever I planted the dark green variety the leaves were snipped from the stems.Hosta Plant Eaten by Bambi's Mom

Last evening, as I watered the flowers, I noticed the Stella Dora  Lilly was different. Earlier in the week the plants were loaded with buds. I looked forward to the color splash. Now, all the buds are gone, and the stems stick up like toothpicks. It’s been so cold this spring that they were late blooming.  Well, they will really be late now. I hope the critter liked ’em.

Mystery Riddle

What has big ears, is brown all over, and takes the output of your hard work?  The answer to this ridfdle will solve the mystery of the missing corn cob. Answer to follow.

Dumb Ass Squirrel Has Competition

Empty Squirrel BungeeSomething lurks in the darkness of the night. What it is I am not sure. I have some suspicions, but have not verified them. The corn cob bungee continues to entertain us regularly. It also makes work for me. I now go around the garden pulling young plants. Corn sprouts are everywhere. I knew the critters couldn’t be eating that much corn. 

A  mystery has developed. I left the last empty cob hang for a few days because I couldn’t get to it. Now, the cob is gone. The bungee cord hangs empty. What in the world eats corn cobs? I’m afraid to go out for fear that whatever it is might eat me too.

Dumb Ass Squirrel Gets Smart

Squirrel on BungeeThe squirrel living in my yard finally got smart. I posted a piece back in March called “Dumb Ass Squirrel #!!&+*^(#?” I described my frustration about getting the squirrel to take a corn cob from a hanging bungee cord. He never did, until I changed things drastically. In the beginning, I hung the cob a few feet away from my bird feeders.  The squirrel was smart enough to get the easy food, and ignored the corn. It wasn’t until I stopped feeding the birds that the squirrel even found the corn.

 

I finally spotted him stretched out along the wire extending from the branch to the cob. He was hanging by his toenails. He finally got smart, I thought, The next day, I was going to lay in wait and video him in action.  Much to my surprise, the following day the corn and  the cable were gone. Disappeared! I searched the yard, but could not find it. Most likely a smart ass racoon stole it.

Last week, I was cleaning in the the woods behind the garden, and there it was, the cable with the empty corn cob. I reattached it to the tree. This time, though, I tied the cable to the tree with a cable tie. I do not want to meet the creature that takes it next.

The squirrel found the fresh cob within  four hours, and now empties one cob a day.  A single animal will make multiple trips to the cob until he is sated. Most likely, I will be pulling baby corn plants from my lawn all summer long.