It all started with a rustle. Just a little rustle in the garden, the kind you ignore because maybe it’s the wind. But this rustle had attitude. This rustle meant business. This rustle had a bushy tail and zero respect for property boundaries. I promised I would update you when I had news and boy do I have great news! The squirrel is gone!
This rodent wasn’t your run-of-the-mill nut collector. He an alpha backyard marauder—territorial, aggressive, and possibly hopped up on fermented birdseed. He dug holes like he was planning a subway system, ate seedlings like candy.
As you all know, I did what any rational adult would do: I declared war
HHH and I gathered our first line of defense. Deadly gopher pellets.
We sprinkled them like seasoning a gourmet squirrel salad. The directions said something vague like “Apply liberally to active burrows,” which, in this case, was anywhere within a three-mile radius. I imagined this creature sniffing the stuff, coughing, and dramatically packing his bags like, “Well fine, I see how it is.”
Nope.
Instead, he doubled down and made more frequent appearances.
And so, the challenge was on. Something was going down, and it wouldn’t be the petunias.
We went full action movie villains and bought gopher gas bombs—little chemical canisters that you light and shove into a burrow like a suburban depth charge. The instructions came with warnings like “Do not breathe,” and “Do not ignite near house.”
HHH lit the fuse, shoved it in the burrow, and waited like a patient assassin. And then… nothing. Not a whimper. Not a cough. Not even smoke. Nothing at all. And, worse than that, the destructive visits continued.
Broken, beaten, and deep into rodent warfare, we finally turned to technology. When cleaning out the shed, I found a solar-powered vibrating stake that claimed to “repel underground pests through pulses and vibrations.”
I was skeptical. Mostly because this squirrel didn’t live underground—he lived in my soul at this point. But desperate times called for desperate measures. I deployed this little device and then forgot about it.
The very next day, HHH brought out the gun and we were ready. This squirrel would enjoy his last visit to Winterpast. That’s all there was to it. It was going to die at the hands of My Mysterious Marine.
And this time… something changed.
The squirrel moved out.
At first, HHH waited by the back door with the pellet gun. One shot and the ordeal would be over. But, the squirrel never reappeared. Just like that, his hole is as empty as the flower garden.
Gone. Just like that. One day he was shimmying up our bird feeder pole, and the next, vanished like a tax return in April. Did the vibrations work? Did he finally get bored? Did he move to the neighbor’s yard with better seedlings?
A friend inquired about our seedlings the other day and I mentioned the problem with the squirrel.
“Ohhh, my dad just told me about a device that puts vibrations in the ground. Works swell. His squirrels moved out. Have you heard of it?”
Well, at least now we have a better idea of why he left.
I still wake up sometimes in a cold sweat, swearing I heard a chitter outside. But for now, peace reigns in the backyard. The new seedlings are sprouting. The lawn is healing. As for HHH and me? We’ve learned that sometimes it takes a little sun-powered passive aggression to win a war.
Stay vigilant, fellow gardeners. And never underestimate squirrels.
PS–
Not so fast. Another sighting has been confirmed within the last few minutes. The war continues. Stay tuned.