Strawberry Thieves

Before hay season started along with this heat dome/heat bubble/scorching weather system that showed up, I was very excited about the strawberry crop in the garden. There were lots and lots of little berries forming while the bigger ones were beginning to pink up, I had begun to incorporate a few handfuls with meals and was looking forward to filling my freezer with gallons of fruit.

The robins and jay birds had also been keeping an eye on the berry crop from the apple and prune trees, they also watched as the berries ripened and would swoop in to peck the sweetness as they reddened.

Since I had been busy with hay and weather there was little time to do much about the pesky birds, I figured that there would be enough to share. But it seemed like each time I got out to the garden to harvest a bowl full of the sweet berries, I could not find more than just a smattering of ripe fruit.

It was about that time when we started using the logging gate for hay equipment when someone looked up into the huge, old, gnarled big leaf maple tree growing near the edge of the gate and saw the head of a raccoon sticking out of a rotted limb hole high up in the tree.

It was a sure bet that there was a family that had made a comfy home in the big old tree and used it during the day while thieving in the garden at night. They had been snatching the berries as quickly as they ripened on their nightly forages into my garden.

While we usually have the dogs tethered at night, we now have them guarding the garden space more closely but it is a little too late for the strawberry crop. I only was able to gather two quart bags full for freezing besides what we ate fresh. We will have to savor the few we have during the winter because now the 100+ degree temperatures we have cooked the forming berries and the season is over for this year before any more fruit will set.

The birds and masked marauders won this round, now I’ll have to take action to save the apple, pear and plums.