Origins

Last year, my wife thought it might be fun to grow tomatoes in pots on our back porch. I agreed and help her to plant, stake up, water and care for our vines.

Soon, the first green fruit was just about to turn red when it vanished. Ahh! I thought some crawling varmit has gotten in and eaten our first beefsteak. So from the local home store I bought a simple plastic netting with which I surrounded the plants.

As the tomatoes continued to disappear, I decided that surely a bird had flown in and snatched in away, so the plastic fencing went over the top.

3 months of watering and watching and not a single ripe tomato landed in our kitchen. Each time a fruit would near ripeness, it was gone. Snatched away not into the jaws of a beast, but surely stolen by that most wretched of all the beasts, man.

I've had many suggestions from friends as to how to catch the thief. Inject the tomatoes with exlax, Rig up high voltage lines. Instead, I went on a bit of a shopping spree at x10.com and picked up a little surveillance equipment.