Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face

I hate squirrels. They are not cute and fuzzy, despite what Nimue may say; rather, they are voracious pestiferous thieving rodent spawn.

Case in point: our apricots

Last year, we moved into new house, anticipating a plenitude of yummy fruits off of the apricot tree, as the tree was laden with green apricots when we took possession. Two weeks later, the fruit at the top of the tree started to turn yellow and we discovered the true villainy of the members of genus Sciurus.

Their evil modus operandi:
Pick apricot when first blush of color appears. Eat one bite. Eat another bite and realize most of fruit is still green. Shred fruit in disgust and throw it all over the lawn. Proceed to the next fruit and repeat until there is no more left on the tree. Admire large pile of shredded fruit on the lawn, cavort on the back fence, and go have babies.

Now that just sucks. There was enough fruit on the tree that I wouldn't have minded sharing if they had at least left some of it for us. What was worse, they didn't even wait until it was ripe enough for them to fully enjoy. Argh.

This year I climbed up into the tree and netted the most heavily laden branches while the fruit was still green. I figured this stood a good chance of working -- the same net has kept the varmints out of the strawberries. For good measure, I liberally booby-trapped the net and tree with clear packing tape, sticky side out (an occasional tape booby-trap does a remarkably good job of deterring the cat from jumping on countertops inside; I thought maybe squirrels wouldn't like getting tape stuck to their fur either).

The result (from the squirrel's point of view):
Look at apricot when first blush of color appears. Study netting. Use freakish dexterity to cast net aside. Laugh at silly humans. Pick apricot. Eat one bite. Eat another bite and realize most of fruit is still green. Shred fruit in disgust and throw it all over the lawn. Proceed to the next fruit and repeat until there is no more left on the tree. Admire large pile of shredded fruit on the lawn, cavort on the back fence, and go have babies.

They got through most of this process while we were up in Downieville a couple of weekends ago; we came home to find nets tangled everywhere and most of the fruit shredded on the ground.

This meant war.

The tree still had a few apricots on it, as the squirrels hadn't quite gotten through all of the nets. It also had clearly not been pruned in several years, and was badly tangled in the wires going into the house.

I have an excellent pole pruner and a genetic disposition toward tree carnage. And a rodent-induced rage that needed to be dispelled. Much hacking of innocent tree ensued.

All the while, I could hear the local squirrel population chittering and growling with rage. (Yes. Squirrels growl when they're mad. I kid you not. Go search on "squirrel growl" on youtube if you don't believe me.) I was armed with a 16 foot stick with a pointy bit on the end, so they dared not approach.

I salvaged the remaining apricots off of the pruned branches, let them ripen on the counter for a couple of days, and tossed them into a cauldron of sugar syrup (aka the enormous stockpot), and froze the mess for use in desserts and smoothies for the rest of the summer. And I made a delicious apricot pastry with the ripest ones, so some immediate gratification was had.

I've probably destroyed any chance of an apricot harvest next year with the severe pruning, but the tree is no longer touching the roof, is no longer tangled in the wires, and is no longer casting its ever-growing shadow across the squash and cucumber in the veggie bed. And even if I don't get any fruit, the detestable varmints won't get any fruit next year either. Ha.

Sadly, the squirrels appear to have implemented their next sally in the urban garden battle: the first tomato of the season off of our plants that was almost ripe has disappeared. Gotta go plan tomato tactics...