I called my dad, who would gladly pass all of his days digging in the dirt making space for flowers, to tell him the exciting news.
"When do you want me to come down," was the first thing he said.
Last year when I got tomato and red pepper plants he came down to plant them for me. One, because he loves it and two, because I'm a notorious flower killer.
But this year I thought rather than have my poor ol' dad with his bad back drive three hours to crouch over some dirt I'd do it myself.
"When do you want me to come down," he said again.
So my dad (with mom in tow) drove three hours to plant my flowers and vegetables.
Look how tiny everything is in this photo.
And look at them now.
This tomato is even starting to ripen.
And the petunias are about to take-over.
Amazing what wonders water can do.
Everything was going along swimmingly up until a few weeks ago, when I noticed that my teeny tiny red peppers were suddenly gone. But since my red peppers tasted like weeds last year anyway, I figured it might be for the best. But still, did the wind blow them off? Did they get some disease?
Then Friday I noticed a green tomato had been plucked from the vine and dumped unceremoniously in the dirt. And it had evidence of having been violently gnawed on.
Squirrel! Was my first thought.
I see the little long-tailed rodent scaling up the side of the building periodically. If that little jerk eats all my tomatoes it's going to be seriously on, I told Adam.
Then today as we were going out for a bike ride guess who was hot-tailing up the side of the building to the third floor? Mm hmm. That squirrel. He didn't stop at my balcony for a snack, but he has a home on the roof I think, which makes my tomato plants nature's version of 7-11 for him.
He's not in this photo, but you can see what I mean.
If I don't end up with any tomatoes this year I'm going squirrel hunting.
1 comment:
Sorry to hear about your invader. Take heart, though, a squirrel is better than the SKUNK that has taken up residence under our backyard storage shed. Jason is actually hunting that one.
As a tip, we put one of those hideous plastic owls (not surprising we had one to pull out since Alivia just had to have it when she spotted it in Wal-Mart last summer)on our patio to keep the squirrels and rabbits away from our flowers and pepper plants. That has worked (just not for the skunk).
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