In a world gone mad, doves are now pilfering apples?

Clemency? Hell no. Blow their little asses away.

You would kill over some apples?
You are a bad person, and you should be in jail forever.

Don’t kill the Doves, net those trees!
Shit…the only thing that gets killed on this ranch are the ground squirrels because their holes can trip up a 20k show horse. I don’t like killing anything just because, maybe chop up some apples for the Doves and build a platform to feed them, everyone is happy.

Doves and pigeons are very closely related, so it’s not that surprising. Unless you see them peel the apples first.

I say get a falcon. That way, you can at least eat the birds.

Why are you throwing away so many apples? So they take a little chunk out of one part of the apple, so what?

Just cut off any spoiled part and use the rest of the apple. If you cut the damaged apples up in pieces daily and put them in acidulated water, you’ll have the start of a nice batch of applesauce.

Then the whole apples which have escaped damage can be used for things requiring whole undamaged apples.

But even an apple pie requires cutting the apples up into smaller pieces. The doves have just given you a little headstart on the process.

Lemons are your friends. Use them to avoid too much spoilage.

Why kill the birds if netting the trees (as @Coloma suggested) will avoid too much damage? These poor birds have no idea the apples are your exclusive property unless you do net them. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (and eliminates needless bloodshed)...unless you’re just looking for an excuse to shoot a bunch of birds :)

I was reading that birds don’t like white netting. It reminds them of spider webs.

@ragingloli Curious what passes for eloquence these days. Though the remedy of jailing me for life might be ideal, it ain’t gonna happen, Your assessment of my character is a pointless waste of time Since I’ve marked the birds for death, the issue is not whether or not I deserve incarceration. How many potential killers do you suppose have been dissuaded by “you outta be in jail”? If anything, your admonition merely spurs me toward carnage if only to spite the likes of YOU!

@Adirondackwannabe Well, the straightforward no nonsense answer! I’m inclined to agree with you, but the urge is leaving me as the hours pass.

@Coloma Thank you for a reasoned solution that I hadn’t considered. It avoids the silliness of the answer above which assumes that either I or the birds are somehow destined to the fate we deserve. I’ll look into it.

@dappled leaves What surprised me, was that I’ve never seen a dove or a pigeon attack a full blown apple. I think I’ll walk a block to Mission st. and conduct a little experiment on the sidewalk in front of the produce stand.

@Buttonstc There’s no disputing the waste involved. The composting bin was half full of grounded apples when the garbage was collected this morning. I’ve since collected another third of a bin of mauled fruit from the ground. I’ve picked 4 shopping bags of apples, 3 of which we’ll pass out in return for a percentage of the wonderful baked goods resulting from the spectacular women we know. I would collect the possible 2 remaining shopping bags of holed and partially eaten fruit, but frankly wouldn’t know what to do with it. Can the damaged apples be stored like the one ones with intact skins? The wife doesn’t keep em and that’s lesson enough for me.

@snowberry Next year, I’m going to invest effort in the tree. This year, I neglected the poor tree terribly. In the past, when I soaped and watered the tree, we’ve had wonderful results. I’m absolutely useless as a gardener, but when the wife pays attention the tree performs spectacularly. The wife is currently obsessed with her ukeleles, and the yard has pretty much gone to hell.

@stanleybmanly ” The wife is currently obsessed with her ukeleles, and the yard has pretty much gone to hell.”

That has the makings of a great song. Or perhaps a short story.

@dappled_leaves The wife is rather amazing. Any project or task which interests her, she attacks with great enthusiasm and ALWAYS excels at it. She achieves this through a level of concentration and effort that I find almost terrifying, and obsession is no exaggeration in describing her involvement. There are indeed some really great stories with the wife at the center, but spinning them here, would necessitate my leaving the country. Then there would be the eternal fear that she might become obsessed with tracking me down.