Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I used to think squirrels were cute as they darted here and there, across streets against traffic, and up trees with abandon. I no longer think that.

Instead squirrels have become a nuisance in my world. There are grey, black, and brown ones and all of them love to dig in my flower gardens. I don’t remember this tendency in years past; it was the moles that were bothersome. But this year, it’s squirrels. Contemporary wisdom is that they are searching for the nuts they buried earlier in the season. But doesn’t that require they remember where they’re buried, and I suspect the squirrels don’t.

Every morning I survey my “kingdom” and decide what it might need. Invariably I find holes near plants that are new and struggling. The holes don’t help, particularly if they expose the little plants’ roots. The squirrels seem to have a particular affinity to rose bushes, but I doubt the little critters even know what a rose bush is.

It was Shakespeare’s Juliet who exclaimed, “That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.” Do squirrels appreciate the scent or the sentimentality attached to roses? Probably not.

I checked to see if squirrels were on the endangered species list, which would mean it’s illegal to shoot them. Turns out the western gray squirrel is. I’m not sure I could shoot the black or the brown ones either, so my current solution is to spread crushed red pepper flakes around most of my flowers in the hope of deterring further holes.

We’ll see if this works before researching more drastic measures.