the Walnut Diary

Yesterday I raced before the gathering snow clouds to resolve the issue of the squirrel-depleted seed supply in the new field.  As you may recall I had listed four alternatives:

1.  ignore the losses and plant more nuts;

2.  fence the squirrels away from the seeds;

3.  shoot or poison the little demons;

4.  find a way to gross them out.

I had intended to report a glorious smear tactic in this space, one using a couple of tons of fresh, green goo.  Turned out that wasn’t all that easy to do.  First, every farmer I asked offered only well-aged, environmentally friendly compost — excellent fertilizer, but almost completely lacking in that essential “yuck” factor.  When I refused one offer, planning to hold out for the gooey stuff, a neighbour pointed out that my spreader couldn’t contain the smelly stuff, unless I wanted to haul it in oil barrels and spread it with a bucket.  That grossed me out and I abandoned the plan.

Then yesterday afternoon it warmed up after a heavy rain and the time for the assault had come.  In the tradition of Sir Arthur Currie, it came down to choice #1,  so I exhorted my basket of  nuts to further efforts in the name of The Croskery Woodlot and sent them out in ever greater numbers to face their wiley foes.  It was better than doing nothing, and I have lots of  nuts.  I’ll watch from the safety of the verandah and hope they survive.