What's growing in your garden?

[Whateverist]

What's growing in my garden? Not a damned thing, we had record high temps concurrent with a nasty drought and I'd gotten entirely sick of irrigating my little home garden (especially considering the amount of money I'd spent irrigating my leased "garden"). I let it die, and I let the native weeds and grasses do what they do. Figured I'd take the opportunity to starve the squirrels and other critters that have begun to specialize in stealing my food. Besides, it needed a rest, I was working that little plot of clay like a dog...lol.

You should see the size of the damned squirrels in my neighborhood. Some of them are evolving saber teeth so they can prey on the larger, shaggier ones. It all started because we planted so many fruit trees 25, 30 years ago. Those are now largely ignored, except by the squirrels and their rat cousins who live along the creek. My younger dog becomes almost incoherent with rage when one of the cheeky buggers cusses her out from a safe height.

I used to raise finches and other small birds in aviaries set beside the creek. All that bird seed really drew in the mice and rats. One time a rat gnawed its way into one of the outside flight cage right through a 4 by 4, the only thing I hadn't flashed. Once when I was buying one of those mice traps that captures lots of live mice a lady from the SPCA who had set up a table in the store congratulated me for my concern. I didn't have the heart to tell her that all the mice were then dispatched with the end of a two by four inside a large garbage can. (Where is it that really needs your excess live mice, I wonder?)