Time for Our Annual Check-In With the Fucking Squirrels

The Enemy after a little snack at the cat food bowl.

Yes, that's right. It's that time once again for the fucking squirrels to ruin my garden. As ever, demonstrating the triumph of hope over experience, I put in a summer garden. I did this with the wonderful help of the amazing Robin Chotzinoff and her team at Dirty Hands Garden Design. Robin is an old friend, a Dick Monologues alum, and a genius gardener. Things were looking good.

I knew it wouldn't be long before the fluffy-tailed rats moved in, but I chose to live in a state of denial. The unusually cool spring seemed to keep them at bay, and there was enough rainwater to convince them to not chew through my drip irrigation hoses as they are wont to do. Yes, I saw them digging up pecans they'd buried in the raised beds-- so much for the useless fucking "realistic" plastic bobble-head owl "deterrents." But the tomatoes and peppers and squash went mostly untouched. And then...

And then they discovered that they didn't have to settle for the ridiculously expensive organic cat food in the front of the house or the equally ridiculously expensive organic chicken feed in the backyard. Oh no, they could help themselves to the sweet potatoes I sprout in jars to be like Martha Stewart on a budget and keep on the patio. Well, okay, actually the truth is I don't set out to create these arrangements, I just sometimes forget to eat my sweet potatoes in a timely fashion, at which point I stuff them in jars, as my mother did to have green around our house and stay within her minuscule budget. In my case, the vines had taken over the house, wrapped into the spokes of my ne'er used bicycle, and attracted a rather stunning army of ants. And so I moved the potatoes outside only to discover this:  

Fucking squirrels.

Once upon a time Rebound would take out the squirrels. Once she even left half a squirrel carcass on the rug for me. Sweet Rebound. If I am to be honest though, I confess that while I am no fan of destroyed gardens, nor can I advocate death for the squirrels who are just trying, like us and the Bee Gees, to remain stayin' alive (moment of silence for all the dead Brothers Gibb). Anyway, that was back when Rebound was at fighting weight. Here is the current scenario. "HEY REBOUND!! There are squirrels in the yard!!!" 

Yeah? Who gives a shit?

And so it came to pass that I had to take matters into my own Breaking Bad hands. On the advice of a nice woman at Natural Gardeners, I acquired the following: spray bottle, mask, latex gloves, dish soap, and a shit ton of habañero peppers. As I contemplated the great potential for burnt lungs, I let the bag of peppers sit and fester and mold for awhile before I actually did anything with them.

Look at these. They look innocent, right? WRONG! 

Finally, I took action. I donned the mask, hoped the boiling peppers wouldn't choke out me and the dogs, turned on the swamp cooler fan, opened the doors, applied my swim goggles, and set to work.

And as I worked, I had just two thoughts. The first thought: Let me live through this. The second thought: FUCK YOU SQUIRRELS!

Boil, boil, toil and trouble. And bubbles. Soap bubbles, I mean, not Bubbles' cremains. That would be gross.  

Disgusting and deadly.

And then I took the concentrate, stuck it in the fridge for about a month until I finally got together the energy and daring to go out and spray the garden with the mixture. The nice lady at Natural Gardeners tells me that squirrels hate the spicy heat of peppers.

 That's all well and good, and I am hopeful this year the latest plan will work. Of course now every single thing I harvest is going to taste like habañero, totally suck, and be entirely too spicy to eat. But that's beside the point. I don't care if I don't get to enjoy the yield. Just as long as those fucking squirrels don't either. Ah, the sweet taste of victory!