Bandits

I still have a bunch of stuff to cover from our trip to MI, but we have been dealing with bandits, varmints, and low-down thieves! We spend hours pruning, cutting up, and disposing of grape vines every winter, tie growing vines, dodge trailing tendrils over the patio, and deal with wasps and hornets, until we can pick some of these table grapes. If only the girls were the only ones who ate the grapes off the vines....

The birds, squirrels, and raccoon seem to know when to arrive for the feast. For a week or two, flocks of birds gather int eh trees around our house, and descend on the vines.

 This is when I wish we had a guard dog out there! And this year a new thief showed up (in the upper right corner)

The birds seem to work from the top down, and the rabbit was working from the ground up. We can't seem to scare it off enough times to get it to leave. That rabbit has taken residence under our apple tree (which is making a huge mess this year) and for now we're not letting the boys try to carry out their threats of killing it.
But as we are stuffing our faces with not-quite-all-the-way-ripe grapes, I'm glad at least they are table grapes, and I don't have to worry about juicing or canning. those ones aren't ripe yet, and a whole vine has been stripped, so maybe I won't even get a chance to worry about it.