Even before I saw Food, Inc., my family and I had started a garden to produce some of our own food. We thought it would be healthier. No good deed goes unpunished.
I created some seriously pungent compost from kitchen leftovers. Our tomato plants started out like normal horticulture. Then they grew to be huge – stupidly huge. Now they are the size of trees. I sit in the shade of their crinkled leaves; they are that big. There are few tomatoes on the sturdy branches, maybe six. Squirrels have stolen most of them.
One tomato was bigger than two fists, yet a squirrel managed to hoist it off the vine and carry it away. He was in such back pain by the time he stopped dragging the tomato across the yard, he could only eat half of it. I saw the chomped green tomato and hoped the squirrel stayed in the squirrelly toilet for a week, but I think I know where the squirrel john is: my yard.
It all works in a big circle, like recycling. I plant tomatoes, I nurture then, squirrels eat them, crap next to the tomato plants and the cycle starts again. What goes around, comes around – and smells like squirrel poop when it gets here. I just don’t get to eat any tomatoes during this cycle.
My neighbor strung aluminum pie plates to his tomato supports. It is a common myth that such shiny things will repel squirrels. Perhaps that was true in the 1970’s, but 2009 model squirrels take the plates and eat the tomatoes off of them like they are at a picnic.
I watched one squirrel gnaw through the string holding one of the plates, while another squirrel ripped a green tomato off the vine. They sat the plate on the ground, put the tomato on it and invited their friends. I’m thinking of hanging a knife and fork out there for them as well. Maybe a little Chianti with fava beans on the side.
I have been having evil thoughts about these squirrels. I dream about catching them and making them go shopping with my wife and daughter. No torture is too painful for the fuzzy-tailed rats. Rudy is no help, either. I think he has befriended them in some twisted animal trade pact. I’m not sure what he is getting out of the deal, but I know exactly what the squirrels get: all the tomatoes they can eat.
Now I just sit in the shade of the gnarly greenery, eating tomato sandwiches bought from the farmers market. I’ve stopped calling it a tomato plant. It is just a smelly tree.