(Wo)Man vs. Nature: the Suburban Years

First, an apology to those of you who may have made arguments for my sanity in previous years -- I have made a liar of you. Of course, it should be noted that I wasn't a very good bet to begin with, so there.

I have been engaged for the last two years in a contretemps (insert corrections here, Jord) with a certain Bastard Squirrel. [Mental Husband here protests, "You don't know that his parents weren't married." - To which I state, firmly, "Yes, my dear, sometimes you just know."]

To be fair, I have given this squirrel mixed messages. I hate wasting food, so if it looks like some fruit will not be consumed by humans, out onto the balcony it goes. It is always consumed within two days. This food is never in a container and obviously then has never been buried in dirt.

Cut to two years ago, when I attempted a container garden. I knew it was going to be difficult to discourage the squirrel from digging, so I spiked the topsoil with lots of chili powder. This, I have read in multiple gardening publications, should discourage them. Squirrels don't like spice, you see. It seemed to do the trick; only a few scrapings occurred in the pots for the next few months. I lost a few green Roma tomatoes, but they could have fallen off in the high winds we get on a third floor in Chicagoland.

Then came the time when we had some beautiful jalapenos ripening. Normally these are picked green, but I was waiting for them to ripen so I could smoke them (somehow) and make chipotles. I noticed one missing one busy morning, another the next. They kept disappearing at the rate of one a day until they were all gone. I thought nothing of it, as Husband was making breakfast omeletes at the time, and his love for all things spicy will one day become the stuff of epic songs. About a week after the jalapenos were harvested, I remembered to ask him how he'd liked the jalapenos. I told him I wasn't upset that he'd used them before I was ready -- after all, they were for his consumption, be they jalapenos or chipotles. "Wait -- we had jalapenos?" was the reply.

Bastard squirrel.

Cut to this year. I'd given up gardening for food as lost, but I still have a few precious houseplants that love the balcony in the summer. One of these is a purple shamrock, my special pride and joy, simply because it was a spontaneous purchase 5 years ago, has survived multiple splittings-off, the parent plant has died, and still it thrives. Until two weeks ago, when BS decided this was its personal playground. Not the imminently replaceable Peace Lily, not the scrawny Jasmine I've almost given up on, but the beloved Purple Shamrock. And only the shamrock.

I've used the hot pepper wax spray (note: don't ever stand downwind while spraying. You'll feel like you've been screaming for hours.). Didn't work, but it did damage the deep purple color of the plant's leaves. Now I've put up a fence of toothpicks in the dirt surrounding the plant and have sprayed the toothpicks with concentrated Red Fox urine. I can't begin to describe the scent of my balcony; suffice it to say that I'm glad the neighbors moved away last week.

Further bulletins as events warrant.