Squirrel Song

I planted two pots of Black-Eyed Susans on my front steps, welcoming fall and any visitors to my home at the same time. They were replacing the yellow Ranunculus I'd killed a week earlier.

I could try to claim that the unusually hot and dry August weather was what killed them, but it wouldn't be true. I'm a plant murderer, a serial killer of all green, leafy potted things. My home is a roach motel, plants check-in but they don't check-out.

It's not entirely my fault, though. I'm aided and abetted in each killing spree by the damn squirrels that live in my yard. It doesn't seem to matter what I plant--perky impatiens, curly sweet potato vine or sturdy marigolds those damn dressed-up rats will bypass all the other plants on all the other steps/decks in my neighborhood to dig up mine. Sometimes they're burying their nuts for the winter, which I don't like but can at least respect, but in Chicago they used to dig up my window boxes to plant rocks! Rocks! It was like they were giving me the finger and tossing my poor petunias on the ground to wither and die at the same time.

I thought it would be different here in Durham, that the squirrels in Chicago were mean, fearless city squirrels and that the southern squirrels would be more polite. (Or would at least leave my plants alone in favor of the bounty growing all around them.) Imagine my surprise when I came home from work to find the steps around my Black-Eyed Susans covered in soil, the pots pitted with holes dug down exposing the flowers' roots. I scooped the dirt back up, tamped it down around the flowers and watered them, cursing the squirrels all the while. Two days later I came home to an identical scene. My neighbors have four potted mums on their steps, less then 10 feet away, untouched by the squirrels. I have two small pots of Black-Eyed Susans and I'm under attack. I think it's personal.

I hate those damn squirrels.

And now I'm going to go back outside, sweep up all the soil and start this dance all over again.