North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Martha L. Davis" <martha_davis@earthlink.net>]

Here my neighbor who is closer to the canyon, and therefore the squirrels, 
doesn't get any fruit from her large apricot tree due to squirrels.  By the 
time they have finished that one the first 1/2 to 2/3 of my apricots are 
harvested.  What the squirrels seem to be doing with almost all the fruit is 
to eat a hole in the side and extract the pit and eat that leaving the 
remains of the fruit.  It may be worse with sweet pit types as with any nut, 
but they definitely go for both.  

We had a 18 degree freeze last night.  a great many of the apricots in full 
bloom were toast, but judging from the browning of flowers not all were.  It 
will be a few days before I can be sure about damage.  At this time it looked 
like a few varieties escaped damage due to cold resistance of flowers and a 
few escaped damage due to later bloom times.

Martha in New Mexico