Band of Thieves

  While I love the critters that inhabit the Bayou, Creek and wooded area around here, I have to admit that occasionally I get a tad irritated at some of them.  Just last week, I observed the squirrels munching the peaches. Three of them would slip into the garden, each grab a peach and scoot up the nearby Black Gum Tree.  There, they would gnaw the peach and toss down the pit.  Five nights ago, it was different critters in the same tree.  The coons riddled the peach crop.  It would not be so bad if they helped themselves to a few and then were so kind as to leave a few for us, but...NOOOO....they have to taste-test each and every peach on the tree.  What they do not eat, they simply bit and dropped.  One night and about half of the peaches were lost.  Son and I went out the next day and picked the remaining fruit even though they were not quite ripe.  Better to get what we could before those were ruined.  Peach jam can be very forgiving when it come to ripeness.  

  Three nights later, the same thing happened to the plums.  Two trees of fruit were eliminated by the same process.  Bite and drop seems to be the norm for coons.  We got six plums.  Those were thrown in the pot with some of those green peaches.  Jam is good.

  Now I have had it with raccoons!  I am so over their thieving ways.  Between those and the birds stealing the Boysenberries, it is amazing that we have any fruit whatsoever.  Then...yesterday morning....while I sat drinking my coffee. I noticed a wiggle outside the window in the tomato patch. A Redheaded Woodpecker was hammering away at my nice red tomato!  Geez!  I grabbed a bucket, picked every tomato that was remotely changing color and brought them inside.  There, bird! Take that!  I made gallons of tomato sauce today.  Tomorrow will be the same as I shall pick more in the morning.  It is hard to believe that this pretty bird would stoop so low as to be a tomato thief!  Then again....he does have sneaky eyes....just look at him!  Thief!!!

  It seems as if the critters are thinking my gardens are there for their pleasure.  I would not mind so much if they lent a helping hand...errr...paw, talon, claw or whatever...but for them just to take is totally uncalled for.  Pops always used to say that we just had to plant more the next year to make up for what the critters (and unscrupulous people) stole from his fields.  I never remember him becoming upset over the thefts.  Maybe I just need a bigger garden.....or high fences.....or a pack of large watchdogs...or maybe I should just count my blessings and forget about it.