Tuesday, July 25, 2017

green pecans and squirrels



The pecan trees usually start dropping green nuts around the first of July but that didn't happen this year so I was feeling a little optimistic about this year's possible pecan harvest. Up until now anyway. This past week, and in fact just in the last few days, the trees have started unloading immature nuts. I just gathered an overflowing handful in about five minutes under one tree alone. And then there are the ones that the squirrels are taking, the half eaten ones. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the teacup down or stopped putting seed in the totem or stopped cracking a hand full of nuts from last season every morning that I tried to distract them with. But, ya know, I ran out of seed and then we were getting ready for the trip and then we were on the trip and then we were recovering from the trip and...

Those pesky squirrels, and I like squirrels, I do, I just wish they would stay the fuck off my bird feeders, OK?, are not convinced that I have taken down the teacup. They come and check periodically through the day and there's one, I think it's the same one, that will come and sit on a small branch on the tree/shrub and look at the window. We have staring contests. It'll peer this way and then that way and then up and around and then it will jump onto the screen of the adjacent window as if, I don't know what, to get a better view? And then there is one who is not confounded by the slinky on the totem bird feeder and who sits in the tallow tree just waiting for me to turn my back. I try to sic Minnie on them but she only sort of gets the program. She knows 'squirrel' and she knows about the teacup and the tree/shrub but the one that gets on the totem, she doesn't seem to get that it runs from the totem to the tallow tree which is a straight shot through the back door...back door, totem, tree.  Instead, she runs out the back door and takes a hard right and runs over to the turtle pond and goes ape shit over Big Mama sunning herself, which Big Mama tolerates for a while and then slips into the water. This is what passes for fun around here. Or exercise or rather, exercise in futility, as I admit I try to scare the begeezus out of it now and then by busting out of the back door and screaming obscenities at it. It's not fazed.

Well, I have seed now so I suppose I should start putting it out and put the teacup back up and I have a new idea to prevent that squirrel access to the totem involving metal flashing which I hope is slippery and flexible enough to prevent purchase. We'll see. So far I feel like the coyote. 




15 comments:

  1. I haven't noticed any pecans dropping yet but I'm sure the squirrels will be throwing them down upon the tin roof of the shed any day now. They just love that sound.

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  2. Crisco can be funny to watch on the metal, I just buy more food. Those little buggers will figure out a way to get what they want.

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  3. I peeled the husks off of a bag full of native pecans and my hands and fingernails were stained green for a month.

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  4. Iiifff you defeat the little buggers, will you keep the solution secret, or will you broadcast it?

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    1. I'll not only broadcast it, I'll brag about it.

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  5. I love turtles and would be staring at that pond all day.

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  6. I do not like squirrels because they are so smart, athletic and prolific

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  7. this post sent me on a google search- all about pecans- I found this, if you have time, things to do with pecan shells.

    http://classicgoldenpecans.com/blog/8-uncommon-uses-for-pecans

    Our squirrels , three of them now and then, are not a bother to us so I buy peanuts and walnuts and brazil nuts for them. They are polite, wait at the door asking "please, sir, could I have more". cute little rodents!

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  8. Believe me, I can identify. We have lots of squirrels and I feel like it's a continual push-pull to see who can control whom! I don't mind them as long as they're not digging up our plants. Fortunately, at this time of year, they're obsessed with the green walnuts in our walnut tree, so they mostly leave the smaller stuff alone.

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  9. After reading the Rusty Duck blog and the squirrel problem, I bought Twirl-A-Squirrel from Amazon. The most successful device I have used. We have had a yard full of acorns so there is no reason the squirrels should be raiding the bird feeders.

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  10. Ha - I'd love to see you bursting through the back door yelling at the squirrel :) Mike put some sort of metal contraption on our bird feeder, but it didn't faze the squirrels at all. Of course, our feeder hangs from a tree, so it's a little different.

    My dad brought us some corn from his garden & it was SO GOOD. I'm glad I got to enjoy it because raccoons ate the rest of it in the garden. Bastiges.

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  11. So, what is this about the teacup? And did it actually help to feed the squirrels on purpose to keep them away from your green pecans??

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    1. the teacup was a little bird feeder that I made from a tea cup and saucer that hung from the eave in front of a window. I put sunflower seeds in it and got close up views of the birds but then the squirrels found it and they would get on there and pig out. they knocked it to the ground several times breaking it and I would have to repair it and finally I got tired of doing that and took it down permanently.

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    2. Oh...for some reason I thought it was something you put up to keep them from eating your green pecans! I thought you were saying that if you give them other options for food, they will leave the pecans alone? ha! That would be so nice, if it were true. Thank you so much for your speedy reply.

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.