I live in the sort of neighborhood where we leave doors open all the time, especially the back screen door. The kitchen door pretty much only gets closed and locked when we go out of town.  It’s that kind of neighborhood. Or was, until yesterday.

The squirrels that I spent most of last summer complaining about because they ate everything in my garden, a dozen plants worth of green tomatoes plus every last peach on the peach tree, leaving me exactly none last summer, have now chewed through the back screen door and as I discovered yesterday, are now entering our house and helping themselves to whatever they can find in my kitchen when we aren’t looking.  I came home from the pool yesterday to find jars of dried fruit scattered on the floor and two packs of buns nibbled through.  Needless to say, it’s ON.

Pat set the hav-a-heart trap

immediately as I walked around ranting about how the squirrels must GO and this morning I discovered we caught a raccoon.  Seems there’s endless wildlife feasting around our urban homestead. I guess I should be happy the raccoon didn’t enter through the ‘wildlife door’ because it might not be able to let itself back out the way the squirrels seem to have figured out and I don’t want to deal with a raccoon in my kitchen.

We still have some peaches left on the tree (it’s a late ripening variety, so they aren’t anywhere near ready to be picked) and there are plenty of tomatoes left on the vine, although while weeding yesterday I found 4 green ones that had been picked for me and something ate the first two ripe ones.  I don’t mind sharing a little bit of food with our neighbors, no matter what persuasion they are, but this breaking & entering has gone too far.  I’m taking the neighborhood and my house, back from the squirrels, because dammit, I like living in a world where I can leave my back door open all the time.  It’s a good world to live in.