Racing the Squirrels!

Every year it's a contest to see who gets our produce first - us or the squirrels and raccoons.  The raccoons have a better track record with the grapes than we do.  I'd love to let the grapes go to fully ripe but we'll lose the whole crop if we do that.  Fortunately, the squirrels aren't interested in the grapes but hazelnuts are another matter!

The other day when I was out picking tomatoes with my daughter, we heard a squirrel scolding us.  At the time we thought it was in a nearby fir tree, but today I realized he was in the hazelnuts.  I went right up to the bush and there he was on a branch with the hull in his paws carefully removing the nut - not bothered by me at all!  Of course by the time I came back with a camera he was gone.  Now we don't begrudge the squirrels a nut or two.  Our little guys are the native ones and the big invasive greys and blacks haven't made it to our little island yet.  We are happy to let them share the sunflower feeder with the birds and even to have a few nuts.  But enough is enough!

When we started harvesting this year, there were signs on the ground that the squirrels have had more than their fare share!  Lots of empty husks!

This year's hazelnut crop is a good one.  We only have 2 mature bushes bearing nuts and 2 young bushes just about ready to start. And the young ones have Perigord truffle spores at their roots!  One mature bush is a heavy producer.  It's smaller but always loaded with nuts in clusters.  The other bush is huge but bears very few nuts although the nuts it does produce are very big.  This year it has a good crop, too.

Hazelnuts are not the easiest to see in the bushes.  The clusters appear near the end of the branches on the undersides and tend to blend in very well.  It took a good half hour with our relatively small bushes to get most of the crop.  My husband pulled down the branches for me to strip.  Once we got most of the clusters off the bushes we extracted the nuts from their husks.

I think this is the best crop we've had so far from our hazelnuts.  We'll allow them to air dry in the house for a few weeks before they're ready to eat.  And I'm sure there are still some up there to keep the squirrels happy.