Asleep on the Job

So today this happened:

Poor Fletch has been pretty bored stuck on the porch on this very rainy weekend — and probably lonely too, since we were inside most of the time. Oh, and hungry, since he blew through his dry food out in the workshop. We're starting to think he's sharing with his girlfriend, who hangs out with him in the driveway before dawn on nice days. Or maybe that a skunk is sneaking in to get some. Anyway, he looks cute and cozy and all, but while he was snoozing, this happened:

I'm assuming a squirrel did it, because what other animal out there makes such a giant goddamn mess? It shredded up the stem of one of our pie pumpkins, which we had left out to cure on the warm bricks. This doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but take a closer look:

Having the stem ripped off has exposed some of the flesh of our pumpkin — you can see the scratches in the skin at the top. That means that this pumpkin won't keep until Thanksgiving now, unless we process it. We had been hoping to wait on that, since there's still pretty much an endless supply of tomatoes that we need to work our way through (Kirk is canning more whole as I type, and we also made another two trays of dried tomatoes yesterday). It would have been nice to just let these sit for the next several weeks, but noooooo.

Stupid greedy squirrels. Stupid lazy cat.

To be fair, Jonas told me that yesterday evening he saw Fletch tear down the path ("like a streak of lightning!"), leap atop the back fence, and chase a squirrel along it until he stumbled a bit and the squirrel hightailed it over the other side and up the hill. 

So I guess we'll keep him.