Last week I shared about our fabulous Christmas tree on our back deck. I was feeling pretty darn proud of how it turned out and how much fun it was going to be for the birds to discover the pine cones I had placed on the tree for their enjoyment.

What did I NOT plan on ? The squirrels. Now honestly I was being very naive to think that they would ignore a bird seed and peanut butter coated pine cone adornment. I think I put 5 on the tree and by the next day — the only evidence left of those creative little bird feeders was the twine that held them on.

Those darn squirrels chewed the twine on every last pine cone hanging on that tree and took off with them. My friend Ann told me it was so nice of me to give them take out food during the pandemic.

The day after this I noticed that part of my lights were not lit up on the tree. I figured one of the strands had come unplugged due to squirrel shenanigans so I took to tracking down the unlit strand. What I found was quite unexpected.

These are the two ends of the light strand. If you look closely you can see that there is no plug on one end. THOSE DARN SQUIRRELS! They chewed the plug off and who knows what they did with it. I secretly hoped that squirrel got zapped but I see no signs of a fried squirrel anywhere.

So lesson learned. Do not do this again. I have a little volunteer tree in the yard that I put some on and they seem to be intact so go figure that one out.

The squirrels have been pesky but I must admit I am partial to the guy in the picture at the end of this post. I am sure it wasn’t him that took off with my pine cones or chewed the plug off.