The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
It started when my husband said, "Did you put tulips on the patio table?" No, I did not put the tulips on the patio table, and I did not cut their heads off and leave them ragged and forlorn on the gravel path. It was the usual culprits, the gray squirrels who live in our woodsy neighborhood, and who are very well fed by nice people with bird feeders.
On days like this I strip off my thin veneer of sweetness and compassion for all living things and consider assassinating the little rodents. No, I wouldn't do that. But I have tried all manner of things to discourage them. I have planted the bulbs under chicken wire. I have scattered moth balls. I have bought fox pee and sprinkled it. I have dusted the planters with red pepper powder. These methods can be expensive because they have to be replenished every time it rains, and the bottom line is they don't work. I have borrowed a live trap and taken the bushy-tailed vandals for rides miles away in a county park. But all is vanity. I think I'm going to surrender and dig up the tulips and replace them with daffodils, since the squirrels don't seem to enjoy them.
Serenity now.
1 comment:
I feel your pain. I live by a river in rural Oregon. In addition to squirrels we share our space with a large group of wild turkeys and many, many deer. (And of course, there’s always a neighbor who feels compelled to feed these wild animals.) The turkeys fly onto my deck and over the fence around my small garden and scratch around, ripping up plants. The deer pretty much eat everything. I thought I had read that daffodils were poisonous and therefore safe plants for “outside the fence.” So I planted daffodils. They came up and I enjoyed them for one day, before the deer came through and snapped off every flower. Apparently it’s the stem and leaves which wreck havoc…or maybe it’s the bulbs.
Your squirrels do seem particularly cheeky. At least my deer don’t bite off the heads of the daffodils and drop them on my front porch. Sharon (Shelfari/ISBN)
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