Darned squirrels....

[Robo57]

My Father-In-Law is an Italian immigrant and he takes his gardening and fruit trees pretty seriously. A few years ago he had a bunch of squirrels up in his pear tree eating some and knocking a bunch down. He went after them with a pellet gun which the city he lives in doesn’t allow. A few days later my brother in law was walking down the street and a police car rolled up next to him with the window down. The officer says, “Angelo, we’ve had a complaint that your father’s been shooting at squirrels out his window.”
By brother in law looks him square and says, “that’s a lie. He was standing right under the tree shooting at them.”
The officer said, “well you have to tell him to stop!” Angelo said, “I’m not telling him, you go tell him.”
No dice, the cop chickened out.

I’m right there with you brother,
Both sets of my grandparents were
Sicilian immigrants
And my grandfather’s were exactly the same, very passionate about their gardens,grapes, and fruit trees , squirrels or any other varmits were never tolerated
Your story brought back great memories of a couple of fine men
Ciao

 

[MrTom]

I've always given squirrels a second chance to stay away. I'd live trap the critters when they began showing up at my bird feeders. Used in the shell peanuts glued to the trigger pan and it worked great. In the trap I gave them a shot of purple spray paint from the shoulders back, then cut them loose. Usually the paint job made them stay away. Usually. There were a few purple ones that bit it. There were an awful lot of purple squirrels in the neighborhood as a whole though. And yes, I was contacted by the boys with the badge over the practice after people started reporting seeing purple squirrels. Actually squirrels in this neighborhood have had or been seen with several different color themes over the years. But recently just dead works fine for me.

 

[JimA]