I have a Thief!

It's summer here in Indiana and my tomatoes and cucumbers are almost ready to start harvesting.  I have been waiting for the fresh, heirloom tomatoes all summer.  The ones on the vines are just about perfect, big, round and with all the rain we have received here they should be especially juicy.

 I have had a few tomatoes get ripe, or almost ripe, and I have picked them to finish ripening on my kitchen counter.  But the big, juicy ones are not quite ready yet.

Last night I was watering plants and working in the flower beds and saw this under the pine tree in my back yard.

At first I thought it was one of the Granny Smith apples which have fallen off the tree in our yard.  I find half, or mostly eaten apples all over the yard, including up in the trees!

Then as I looked closer I realized it was one of my beautiful, big heirloom tomatoes (yes a green one) that had been picked and stashed under the pine tree.  It was most likely one of my four legged, bushy tailed thieves!  There was a big bite out of the tomato so I could not take it back.  This morning when I woke up and looked out the window it was almost completely gone.  That darn little thief!  It's not enough to steal all the sunflower seeds out of the bird feeder and stash apples all over my yard.  Now he is hitting my tomatoes!  

I don't mind sharing my produce with the local squirrel but if he takes too many tomatoes I will not be happy!  This squirrel has the best set up ever in squirrel-dom.  He lives in my neighbor's maple tree all year and then comes over to my yard for his (or possibly her) selection of tasty items.

It looks like I will have to become more vigilant about my tomatoes.  I don't mind sharing but I want the best ones for me since I did the work to grow them.  Darn little thief!