Gluttony, Death and Drugs

 The squirrels outside our house are losing their minds over all the hickory nuts scattered on the grass. 

The landscape guys were kind enough to crack most of them open when they mowed. A squirrel will come racing out of the woods and just settle on his haunches, chewing – and chewing - and fattening up for winter. 

But I can’t blame them; I guess this would be like a perfect universe tossing an endless supply of boiled lobster tails or Swiss chocolate at my feet.  

 

Today I took my big jug of vinegar to the garden, followed by a tea kettle full of boiling water.

 Those holly bushes I paid big bucks to have chopped down are still reappearing on the stumps with enthusiastic shiny, baby leaves. They’re surrounded by newbie rose bushes and grasses, so I don’t want to put down anything toxic that would affect their neighbors. I’ve been plucking at the sprouts every time I garden, but I worry what will be going on out there when I’m away next spring. It would be a drag to come back to three fat and happy new bushes next May.

 

And now that we can roll down our car windows again, I’ve found that what’s greeting me isn’t always fresh air. 

My first thought is, uh-oh, some skunk has met his end, but I’m wiser now. After years of teaching high school (although my biggest transgressor was middle-school Omar), I can easily detect that smell. Too often now, marijuana being an okay thing here in Massachusetts, the car in front has generously sent back big green clouds of pot for me to enjoy. 

I wish that on their next trip to the dispensary, they’d take a page from my 70+ year-old Mahjong ladies at the Senior Center and buy gummies instead.