A sad tale and sorry tail

We had two young squirrels that frequent our garden and provide my father with a challenge in preventing them from eating the birdseed. He's called them Boris and Ken.

On Friday morning we woke up to find a squirrel tangled on the strawberry netting. At first we thought he was just looking for a way in, but he kept thrashing about and we were eating breakfast we realised he was definitely stuck.


At first we decided to wait and see if he could free himself. I needed to nip outside and as I did, realised that he was well and truly tangle by his rear paw. Mum and I decided to don some heavy duty garden gloves. The plan was that I would hold him and mum could cut him free with some scissors.

No chance, all the little fellow wanted to do was try and take my arm off and growl. He was understandably upset. he had trashed around so much the netting had cut deep into his foot. In the end, I let him bite my glove while mum cut around the tangle foot (he wouldn't let her cut the netting clean off). He scampered off across the lawn to hide under the shed - chased by our cat, Merlin, who had come to see what the fuss was about.

I went to work thinking that we had done all we could, even if he did get munched by a fox. But on my return, bad news. Ken, or Boris, had been last sighted dangling in the top branches of a silver birch at the bottom of our garden. He had exhausted himself trying to untangle the netting on his foot which had by now become loose and re-tangled in the tree. By the time I got home it was all over.


He's still swinging there now, but it hasn't stopped his partner in crime from pinching what was left of the strawberries. Dad found him in the fruit cage today but he managed not to get tangled and made his escape before we could catch him.


I'm not sure what to think - they're pests but it's not nice to see an animal die like the first one did. Perhaps wouldn't have been so bad if we could reach him for the bbq...

Father's Day at RHS Wisley

Had our first strawberries this week. Dad's made his own frame to net them off against the birds.



We went to RHS Wisley for Father's Day. Took lots of photos of the incredible flowers and went to have a look at the model vegetable plots. I went down the plot to water things afterwards.

RHS Model plot


My Plot

Night of the May Bugs

Every year there are a few major ascension dates in the garden calendar. The first of these took place last night with the May Bugs. These beetle or cockroach like insects with Norman Lamont eyebrow style feelers spend most of the year underground as grubs. I often find them while I'm digging. Then for one night of the year they all crawl out to buzz around, frantically bumping into things and mating. Our house has been under assault. Every time you open a window or turn on a light they buzz in like fat carapaced daddy long legs (You can see one on my sleeve - he got stuck behind my hi-fi). They can be quite intimidating...


Yesterday I dug over the new patch in my back garden, which has been moved to where we had a giant overgrown conifer down. (You can see the old patch in the background - the yellow flowers are a sprout gone to seed). It meant digging and tugging out old roots whilst dripping with sweat and covered in dust. Then this morning I bought some landscape fabric and planted the strawberries out into slits and also in a pot.



On the allotment I built a frame for my mange tout peas, and a makeshift wire cover for my broccoli which both seem to have been pecked at by hungry birds. After some heavy weeding I also planted out the first of the wilted toms.