Tropical Storm Hanna???

As I proclaimed yesterday, my house didn't suffer any major damage due to Tropical Storm Hanna. Upon further inspection this morning I did notice a few minor problems. One, the normal dirt packed area behind my shed is now a big ol' mud hole. Two, a 4 foot long tree branch managed to knock over one of my tomato cages and snapped the plant's stem. Finally, quite a few of my sunflowers were snapped. I think this had to do more with the fact that the sunflower heads became incredibly heavy due to being water-logged. So all in all, really, nothing too bad. I really shouldn't even be complaining, considering that people lost their lives in this storm and I lost a few plants.

This morning my lovely next door neighbor called me. She's that stereotypical little old lady- she'll talk your ear off at any chance. She called and actually got my name right (I've lived next door for over a year now and she still calls me "Holly" or "Heather" most of the time) and told me to look outside my front windows. I thought, "great, what's going on that she wants me to look at?" Well, the punk got away before I could get a picture of him, but there was a very fat squirrel sitting on my front porch and he/she was eating my sunflower plants!!!

Now, I've noticed a few decapitated sunflower heads in my lawn over the past few weeks. I thought, okay, the wind must have blown them off or the occasional bird may have swooped and had a snack. This squirrel on the other hand was feasting on what I counted to be five different sunflower heads. When an unknown animal attacked and destroyed two of my tomato plants I chalked it up to survival of the fittest, but this is a fat squirrel. There are a ton of acorns in my back yard and plenty of other plants in the neighborhood, so this squirrel could easily feast on a multitude of other delicious treats.

Sigh.... It seems I have a squirrel problem. I'm not really sure how I'm even going to attempt to solve my "problem." Short of letting Jewels sleep outside on my front porch, which isn't really an option, I guess the squirrels are going to get the best of my sunflowers. Oh well, they were pretty while they lasted.

Next year though... it's on like Donkey Kong!

The carnage.


A centerpiece I put together earlier this week from a few sunflowers.