They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I promised in the last post to tell the sad tale of Reilly’s jack-o-lantern demise… And as you can see, it suffered a drawn out and tortuous death… by squirrel.

The current archenemy of my garden is a ground squirrel that has shacked up underneath the concrete steps leading to our front porch. We have been dealing with him on and off for the past two years now. He is currently living on a steady diet of tulip bulbs and now, tragically, Reilly’s prized pumpkin that we picked from Grandma & Grandpa’s pumpkin patch. We have tried all sorts of humane ways of extracting him… and when that did not work, sadly, we tried all sorts of inhumane ways of ridding ourselves of him. This squirrel is indestructible.

I am trying to be patient, but when your little girl becomes crestfallen over the loss of her Halloween pumpkin the desire for vindication quickly becomes an obsession. I really don’t want to hurt the little bugger– he’s actually really cute. But messing with my family has been the final straw. This squirrel has officially been served his eviction notice.