Many of the plantings in our yard are passalongs from family and friends. Our kids used to joke that while other people planted shrubbery, I planted “sticks.” So, when we landscaped our yard here at the beach-house-not-on-the-beach, we potted our sticks and then replanted them in new beds in the fall. One stick, I was certain, was a flowering almond from my mother’s yard. We planted it by the side fence where it grew rapidly in a most untidy manner, limbs sticking out over the path and taking up more than the space we had alloted. It was so-o-o-o not like my mother’s pretty flowering almond.
When our neighbor mentioned one day last summer that, “Your tree has PEACHES!” we were as surprised as those strange women who are baffled when a baby suddenly falls out during a trip to the bathroom and they’ve been thinking it was just a touch of indigestion for all those months. Tree? We hadn’t even acknowledged that it was a tree. We thought of it as an unruly bush.
My apologies, Surprised Baby Mommas.
The peaches disappeared before they ripened, so we didn’t get any and don’t know who did, but the squirrels and the cardinals were looking guilty and pointing at each other the next time we came to town.
This year, there were so many peaches on the tree that I forgave it for not being a flowering almond. We had a crop growing on that tree!
Word spread quickly and uninvited guests began arriving. They came with jaws packed, here for the long haul.
Dearly Beloved even spotted one of those strange skunk-looking squirrels, asking for directions to our house.
I started finding unripe peaches on the ground. It didn’t take a forensic scientist to determine the origin of the bite marks in them.
We also had some invited guests last week–our friends Beanie and Hoot came to visit and shake their tail feathers at the beach for a few days.
One morning, Beanie looked out the window and said, “There’s a squirrel out there and he’s eating something BIG!”
Sigh.
I’d like to say that I don’t give a fig. . .
But I’m pretty sure I will, as soon as they polish off the peaches.
Merrilymarylee's Weblog 
Now I am really upset at those damn squirrels! Before they were kind of funny, I mean, watching you steaming IS kind of funny. (Ok. No throwing figs at me!) But now? They’ve got into the peaches! Because when you first mentioned peaches, I was imagining peach cobblers. peach pies. yum yum. Those bastards!
Skunk-looking squirrel for sure! Or do you think it was a mask of disguise? Whatever – the pictures are great – the peaches have such potential if the damnsquirrels would just give them a chance! They can have my share of the figs…. would that help?:):) BTW, how the hell do they get those big peaches out of that tree? Surely they aren’t ready to fall – do you suppose they swing from one to the other until one falls? Geez, can I request a picture of that?:):)
I LOL when I saw the Google ad up there for Fig Trees!!!:):)
Just love your blog!!!:):)
Evil, pure evil!!!
The only way you might get some peaches is through roasted squirrel…oh! I cannot believe I even wrote that!
Fantastic photos …dont you just love squirels lol
I really need to Fedex you my squirrel-eating dog…
Life is full of surprises. And peach-theiving,bushy-tailed bastards.
Not sure which is better, the fact that you have skunk-looking squirrels or that you have friends named Beanie and Hoot…
Well damn. And here I thought I was going to get a peach pie. Instead I get empty trees and full squirrels.
Since we’re in the midst of a bad drought here, the raccoons have stripped all of the peaches off of the two trees we have and only left us the pits. Today one of the younger coons is up inside the engine compartment of my husband’s truck and won’t come out. I think he’s waiting for room service.
You always keep me laughing, Mary Lee! I know it is a pain to have squirrels steal all your long awaited fruit –we have issues with our fig tree and squirrels –but no one can write it up like you do! LOL!
We have wild rabbits at our house. They eat up the garden, but at least hey can’t climb trees…
I just love your squirrel ventures. I know they curl your pancreas but it sure is funny from here. Hope they leave you enough for at least one pie.
My mother hung aluminum pie plates in her peach trees to keep the birds and other critters out of the trees. It must have worked because those trees produced many cases of canned peaches, jars and jars of peach jam, and dozens of pie fillings to fill more aluminum pie pans! Oh, and she also dried a few trays of peaches so as to make fried pies in the winter.
Actually the squirrels love you. They consider you to be a very kind and hospitable woman who plants all sorts of delicious treats for them.
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