Ten Dollar Cherry

A brilliant idea, as brilliant ideas sometimes go.
There is an old, beautiful cherry tree in our yard.
We have had two or three good crops of dark cherries
from it in the past ten years.
The problem is the squirrels and birds have gotten many of these gorgeous cherries.
The squirrels even like eating the blossoms.
So last year I had a brilliant idea.
I decided that this year I would buy netting at the nursery and cover some of
the branches so they couldn't eat the blossoms or fruit.
Well I thought it was a good idea.
The netting cost me, you guessed it, ten dollars.
I waited and watched.
When I looked last week there was only one cherry there.
It was almost ripe and I was going to eat that ten dollar cherry.



This is how the bowl of cherries should have looked.
When I went out to pick that cherry, it was gone.
About that time we had a visitor to our yard.

Do you think this is the clever culprit?
I do and he would have heard from me,
but I haven't seen him since.
So you see, my theory didn't work.
My ten dollar cherry ended up being twenty dollars,
as I went to the market and bought some cherries just for me.

tsk, tsk, you bad raccoon!  Is that a smile I see on your face?  Wipe that smile away right now!