Squirrels Beware of Pierre !

I'm a home gardener and I love it. I always do a variety, quite a range of "crops", but tomatoes are my personal favorite. There is absolutely NOTHING that can compare to the taste of a home grown vine ripened tomato, especially the first bite, the first one to ripen.
For the last couple of years I've had a huge problem with squirrels aka/ fuzzytailed flea-infested garden-terrorist rats.....they would eat the seedlings and spit them out just out of spite, dig holes all over the place and then just sit there and taunt me until I got within brick throwing range. Then they scurry up a tree undoubtably hoping I would walk under their branch so they could poop on me. (trick me once, shame on you trick me twice shame on me)

Finally after many replants, much patience and luck, nursing the plants that did make it to fruition the little bastards would come around and take one bite out of a few tomatoes just to get their stinking, slimy little germs on it so I'd have to throw them away. Very wasteful.
I remember telling my pal Johnny about this wasteful problem one night after bailing him out on his 17th D.U.I., he mumbled "hell, just mash 'em up and throw in yer chile (hic) nobody will ever know" , then he puked all over my dashboard, so I kicked him out of the car. (I hope the walk sobered him up).
No way I'm doing that, we could be talkin' rabies or something bubonic here, no way. I decided then and there to just plant extra plants to allow for the waste.
They hate tomatoes these vile rodents and just do this because they are evil.

I was telling my neighbor, Pierre, a liberal, about this problem and asked him if they sold squirrel poison at Home Depot.
He insulted me (I think) in French and told me that that was illegal, so..... I politely asked him if they sold leg or spring traps there or if those big giant mouse traps (rat traps) would have enough force to snap the neck of one of the annoying little monsters.
I asked him in a very polite deadpan manner and assume that he thought I was quite serious. (wellll, I was)

He said, "luke Buster (not my name btw) ze ONLY humane vay to control thees squirrel situatiownn, efe you muust eze veeth life traps, zey are like cages vith doors that spring shut vithout cruching the animals leg or neck or anysing eltze.
"Ze lufly animals are captured veeth no harm ton vatoseffer... merci"
"I sink dey zell zem at your, how you zay, Varm & Vleet."
(pardon my French, I didn't tape it)

I then asked him if he had any squirrel recipes (hey, he's French, doh) and he walked away saying he had to answer his "tay lay fone"......I didn't hear a phone though.

To make a long story short, I did buy a live trap and it worked like a dream.

I baited it with Peter Pan peanut butter, a jar that I got on a huge sale because of the salmonella recall (and the flea market peddler had scratched off the lot numbers) ,.....and waited. Well within a half hour I heard this loud screeching coming from the back yard and lo and behold, I had humanely captured my first squirrel!
These critters obviously hate being confined, he was screeching and clawing and jumping all over the cage trap, what a sight.

I think my neighbor, Pierre is a liar and a sadist because when I dumped the squealing little satan-beast into the bucket of water and held him under with a 2x4 he screamed and writhed even worse! The fight was on, claws flailing, teeth gnashing and the godawful screams......from both of us.
I prevailed in the end, but have learned to respect these little 5 pound bundles of muscle, teeth and claws, at least enough to use a LONG 2x4.
Squirrels can scream under water, seriously, try it.

Humane ? No way, my neighbor lied.

I've decided to forgive Pierre (de Sade) for this sadistic prank.
As a matter of fact I'm making him an afternoon snack, (a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of chile)

bon appetit french fry