First, let me share with you some squirrel mischief! Yes, more rodents to join the rabbitsssss. Here's what they did to our lawn in one day/night/morning in October.
We weren't sure what exactly did it at first. But a friend in another part of town actually caught a squirrel in the act, doing the same in his yard! In broad daylight! The grass is pulled up and peeled back, exposing the soil and roots, and we don't know why. The grass surrounding the digging is weirdly dead. We have not had issues with grubs in this area, the lawn was quite healthy, and there were no nuts buried there.
I tamped down the "squirrel divots" and prayed for the best. But the darn animal came back night after night. Are squirrels really nocturnal? Anyway, we overseeded, but the turf is still a mess. So we decided to have a lawn care company take care of our grub control and fertilizing this year, to be sure the right stuff goes down at the right time, in the right spots. We crunched the numbers and found it's a good deal for us this year, especially with visitors coming in May and some other work being done.
The playfort is gone, and we had the small tree taken down, as well. The little purple tree never really flourished in the 12 years we've been here (planted before we got here); arborist said the species is prone to infestation. Next month we'll have its stump ground, along with an older stump outside the fence. I was encouraged to plant another tree about 5 feet from where the other one was, so we'll be getting a real tree (not a sapling this time) in the ground, too.
And we will have the crabapple tree addressed. This year it gets a long-overdue haircut (or rather, amputation) by the arborist. I was told last fall that it wouldn't hurt it to cut way back. Another interesting thing is about the bark. Remember how I was concerned about it splitting? The tree guy said it was okay, and normal, even. Okie-dokie, then. He was more interested in the amount of fruit. Well, it's all gone now, thanks to the Nebraska winds.
So we start the spring season (okay, it's a week away) with big projects. I've got herb and flower seedlings started inside, but that's another post.
I would have to guess this is a skunk rather than a squirrel. The fact that you someone saw a squirrel is probably a coincidence. Squirrels are not at all nocturnal and are not big grub eaters. Skunks are nocturnal and big grub eaters. Just a guess...might be fun to mount a camera to catch the culprit.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting. There were no grubs in the area, though. We're not sure when exactly it was done, between mid-afternoon and mid-morning the next day. Our friend saw the squirrel actually digging up his yard, too! I did end up spraying the area with critter deterrent, and it went to other parts of the backyard, but without this extensive of damage. It eventually stopped. Freaky.
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