An Unwelcome Guest

We have two 5 gallon buckets full of pecans along with five 50 pound sacks full of pecans that we picked back around the late October - early November time frame.  They are stored in the garage right next to our John Deere lawn tractor.  I have been waiting for some nice weather on a weekend that we didn't already have something else planned.  The weekend that meets those criteria, if it ever comes, I was going to get our old fashioned pecan cracker out and crack pecans all day long. 

I posted about it back in September.  You can read it here: Shelling Pecans if you weren't following us back then.

Pecan Inventory

As I was taking care of some things on my to do list, I saw the following on my work bench in the garage:


Clue #1

Looks like someone has been eating pecans and not throwing the shells in the compost pile.  I'll have to check and see who's doing that and remind them.  Whoa, there's more:


Clue #2

As if on cue, I heard a noise up on the pegboard above my workbench and identified the perpetrator sitting on my circular saw with a guilty look on his face - Mr. Squirrel!  He's the culprit who has been snacking on our pecans stored in the garage.  This is how the pecan shells ended up on my workbench.  He would sit right where he is now and crack the pecans and drop them on the workbench.


"If you'd hand me some safety glasses, I can start cutting immediately."

He was a brave little guy and apparently didn't like the idea that I had caught him red-handed. 

"Are you accusing me?"

I want this fellow out of my garage, so I poked at him with a stick and he hopped down and began scolding me.  He probably feels like I took pecans from 'his' tree, so turnabout is fair play.


I zoomed in on the little guy:



You can really see his sharp claws.  I need to step back a bit!

So, I need to prioritize shelling the pecans and getting them out of my garage quickly as this guy may move all of his friends and family in and we'd get none.