Back in August I started complaining about the squirrels taking every
single pear before they were half grown. They also had completely eaten
all of my early corn and most of the late corn. Later, they took what
was left of the late apples, though the blue jays had pecked most of
them anyway.
Their most recent adventure came when my wife noticed a squirrel on our
deck eating something she couldn't figure out at first. It turned out to
be a beet. The squirrels were pulling the beets. I went out and pulled
the rest. At least the beet crop was one where I got far more than the
squirrels did. I found one "beet" with no top at all. It turned out to
be an apple buried in the beet row. I washed it off and later peeled and
ate it. I think it was an Arlet.
My real reason for writing is that it seems I wasn't the only one to
suffer more squirrel damage than ever before. This AP article appeared
in our local news paper, then I heard it on the radio and then TV. The
other day I found it again as a feature on weather.com and that one is
easy to share here:
http://www.weather.com/news/agriculture/squirrel-population-boom-20121016
Steve (in the new squirrel capitol of the Adirondacks)