A year ago, we moved into a home with mature fruit trees.\u00a0 They have perfect flavorful fruit when allowed to ripen. Fat and Sloppy is a big fan of tree ripened fruit.<\/p>\n
I fertilize and deep water the trees as instructed by my fertilizer bag. \u00a0I celebrate each baby fruit that will develop and ripen into the pride of my existence. I look forward to harvesting and eating fruit from my own trees. Unfortunately, Fat and Sloppy got zero fruit this season because the neighborhood squirrel ate my crop. \u00a0This brazen thief seems to steal fruit on a 24\/7 basis. \u00a0Although he has dropped the peels on me from the branches of a pine tree, I never catch him in the act of running off with my fruit. \u00a0The cast off rinds and the discarded half eaten oranges, grapefruits, apples and avocados that litter my yard are silent testimony to an enemy whom I despise. <\/p>\n
He watches me, studies me and knows my thoughts as I plot his demise. \u00a0He eats my fruit with impunity. \u00a0The squirrel enemy left a special brazen calling card last week by gnawing off part of the rubber gaskets around my car windows.\u00a0 I love to keep peanuts in my car and I’m sure he saw them.\u00a0 I can only imagine the mayhem he was planning once he got into my car.\u00a0 Eating my window gaskets was his way of giving me the finger and letting me know that it was GAME ON. \u00a0He didn’t touch my wife’s car that was parked five feet away, she noted to me… with a satisfied smile.<\/p>\n
I’ve obsessed about getting rid of squirrel for a year now, but its only been that, talk. \u00a0After the car attack, I had to do something. \u00a0I called Rick, from Western Exterminators, my guru for pest questions. \u00a0After describing my squirrel particulars to him, he said that trapping squirrels is difficult and he doesn’t do it anymore. \u00a0Rick said he could set the traps and charge me, but not to expect any success; “it would be a waste of money,” he said. \u00a0He recommended purchasing a pellet gun and waiting for Squirrel to show up and shoot him.<\/p>\n
I liked the approach, but sensed possible problems associated with it. \u00a0My eight year old daughter and I recently watched American Sniper and I’m familiar with shooting to kill, but I’m not a trained marksman. We live on a busy street, so the thought of misfiring and blowing out someone’s car window and having the SWAT team show up at my house made Rick’s pellet gun idea good, but not great. \u00a0Finally, Rick suggested purchasing a squirrel trap. \u00a0He said to make sure to get the small one as the squirrel wouldn’t trigger the bigger trap and would take the bait and leave without being caught.<\/p>\n
I felt victory over Squirrel was within reach. \u00a0For the the next three days, I relaxed by fantasizing about how Squirrel was soon going to be out of my life. \u00a0One of us was going to be king of this property and it was going to be me. \u00a0I drove to OSH hardware on LaBrea Blvd., for a small trap. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I rarely shop, but when I do, I like to find things without customer assistance, so I refused the persistent help offers from the OSH staff. \u00a0After a half hour of not finding the trap, I ended up asking a salesman to show me where they were. He told me they were out of squirrel traps. \u00a0D-Day for squirrel would have to wait. \u00a0I was given the OSH phone number and told to check in with them every day until new traps arrived.<\/p>\n
On returning home and exiting my car, I watched a well fed squirrel cork screw run up my palm tree and into the canopy of fronds at the top. \u00a0My first instinct was to go to Ebay and purchase a WW2 flame thrower and burn him out. \u00a0Ebay doesn’t sell flame throwers; I checked. \u00a0<\/p>\n
My wife advised against the flame thrower due to the cost and potential jail time for setting my palm trees and house on fire (we have a wood shingle roof). \u00a0She did, however, suggest calling a tree trimmer to remove the overgrown fronds off the tops of the trees. \u00a0That would eliminate possible squirrel nests. \u00a0Cost of cleaning up the palm trees…$1,200.00. Now the squirrel stole my crop and cost me $1,200.00.<\/p>\n
A few days later, the trap arrived and I excitedly drove to OSH to purchase it. \u00a0At $40, my squirrel removal costs keep adding up, but what can I do? \u00a0Those fruits are mine, Squirrel has no right to them. \u00a0I drove home with my new trap and went to Youtube to see the best way to set the trap.<\/p>\n
I have small trash cans near where my wife parks for her convenience. \u00a0My wife tosses her half eaten sandwiches, starbucks coffee cups, candy wrappers and used diapers in those cans. \u00a0Squirrel thinks the trash can is his restaurant. \u00a0I noticed Squirrel pulled out a tuna sandwich and left it on the drive way recently. \u00a0He favors people food and it looked like I found a chink in his armor.<\/p>\n
A few days later I set the small trap with a tuna sandwich in it near the trash cans. \u00a0It was a Sunday and I waited for our date with destiny. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I checked the trap every half hour but Squirrel never showed up. \u00a0I was worried that he had outsmarted me and would never fall for the trap. \u00a0Two days later, on returning from work, I saw the trap door down and the cage partially rotated. \u00a0Squirrel went into the trap! \u00a0I finally have him! \u00a0As I cautiously walked around to see the trap, I was crestfallen to see it was empty. \u00a0 No sandwich, no squirrel. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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A year ago, we moved into a home with mature fruit trees.\u00a0 They have perfect flavorful fruit when allowed to ripen. Fat and Sloppy is a big fan of tree ripened fruit. I fertilize and deep water the trees as instructed by my fertilizer bag. \u00a0I celebrate each baby fruit that will develop and ripen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theamericanmale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":97,"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1337,"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatandsloppy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}