Woodchuck Woes (aka where's the gun?)

I will be back later this morning once I reach school to tell the tale. Just wanted to upload the photo before I pack my photo equipment before the trip!

Ok, back in between paperwork for the last day of school.

Every year Larry plants tons of sunflowers. We love to watch the goldfinches and other seed-eating birds take up residence in the yard when the sunflowers are just about done and the seeds are ready for the eating. We leave the spent sunflowers up all winter long, their drooping brown heads a reminder of summer, and they store a hidden seed or two for birds during the winter who hang and peck at them feverishly in the cold.

This year the sunflowers were being eaten, piece by piece. We put netting over it as the deer population in our city keeps growing, and they systematically destroy various plants in our garden that years ago had been left alone.

Yet in spite of the netting, the young 6"-18" high plants were being eaten, leaf by leaf. Larry is cursing out the deer. I try to gently tell him it isn't deer. Bugs? Rabbits?

Then the other day I am sitting in my car, and I watch a fat woodchuck push his way under the netting and pull over a plant and eat the leaves. I get out of the car and run after him.

Larry found the hole (one end of it) and dumped all the gravel we have been saving from my sedimentary rocks into it. Pounds and pounds of it. Then he took the hot red pepper and sprinkled the plants with it, hoping that when Mr. Woodchuck takes a bite, he will spit it out, and run for his life.

We can't tell yet if it is working. There are a few plants left, and if he REALLY wants them THAT badly, he will dig under the metal fence where the other ones are and eat them too.

You can't discharge a gun in the city limits, and someone told me you can't put them in a trap and move them either (this is not verified yet). I am debating all kinds of devious ways to make him find another home....and will let you know how I made out. I am not beyond getting a slingshot and practicing on him either.

Remember Caddyshack? Where IS THAT M-80????

Patti O Varmint