“Where
are you? Come and look at this!” My husband called me to the kitchen window
yesterday afternoon. He pointed at the yard. “Look, he’s sitting up like a dog.”
The
baby groundhog had returned. Not such a
baby any more, he looked very independent, and quite cute. In his begging pose,
it was easier to think of him as a prairie dog than the groundhog I
knew him to be.
Two
weeks ago he had pushed away rocks coating the driveway to dig under the garden
fence. He devastated the garden, devouring all the lettuce greens, kale and
Swiss chard, eating each soy and bush bean and one pepper plant down to their
stalks. He even ate the echinacea and dill, leaving only the tomato and
recently emerging zucchini plants. We plugged up one hole after another. He had
made three. Then my husband laid a metal ladder in the driveway, up against the
garden fence and I set the Havahart trap nearby. I figured the groundhog was
young enough that he might not be suspicious and would walk directly into the
baited trap. He didn’t, but at least we stopped him. Or was it that there was
nothing left to eat? We later saw “Junior”
and his mother in the backyard, several days in a row, happily grazing on
clover. Then the rains came.
Neither
Mom nor Junior showed up for over a week. I didn’t know if we just weren’t in
the yard or passing by the window while they were out there, or if they were
avoiding the paucity of our garden. But one thing I was sure of—if they made
their home under the black walnut stump at the far end of the yard, they were
under water. The entire back half of our yard was soggy. When the grass became
less wet and I explored toward the back, I could still see water sitting inside
the entrance hole under the stump. I placed
some pulled-up weeds across the opening; if some-critter entered or exited I
would know.
Now
that Junior had reappeared, and with our lettuce and kale making a comeback, I
had to do something to protect our crops. During the day, still thinking Junior
was a neophyte, I baited the trap with broccoli and kale, placed it outside the
garden fence and covered it with branches.
But our young groundhog was not buying. I decided to put the trap out by
the stump at night.
At ten fifteen
last night I grabbed a flashlight and opened the back door—and jumped back. Three kitten-sized black and white balls of
fur scattered as a larger, striped animal ran off to the right. I slammed the
door shut before they decided to act on their fear. The trap would not be set this night.
“It’s
your sign,” said my husband. “You invited them.”
He was
referring to the sign that proclaimed our backyard to be a certified wildlife habitat.
It had been certified five years ago, but I only hung the sign on the back door
last month. Obviously, our wildlife can read.
This
morning I checked the stump. The weeds had been moved. Someone had settled in
under the stump. But who? From past
experience I knew that groundhogs wake up late. We’ve never trapped one before
ten A.M. It was only 6:30 so I put the trap in front of the hole. But by one
P.M. the trap was still empty. I removed it. Skunks come out at night. The last
think I want to find in the trap is a family of skunks.
So
whose garden is it? The battle continues.
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