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Post by claude on Aug 27, 2015 17:59:31 GMT -5
My garden gate is 5' tall and the closure is just a piece of cedar with a screw in the center that overlaps the gate. It's been getting looser and looser..just haven't goten down there with the screwdriver to tighten it up. saw the ground hog standing on his back legs, leaning on the board and walking thru the gate...by the time I got down there..he had bitten all of the tomatoes...one bite of each? i yelled and made noise and he scurried out,,thankfully.
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Post by gulfcoastguy on Aug 27, 2015 18:54:02 GMT -5
Any recipes for groundhog? Maybe roasted whole with a green tomato stuffed in his mouth?
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Post by claude on Aug 27, 2015 19:44:45 GMT -5
IDE like to try digging a deep hole, like a Cuban firebox for whole pigs.
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Post by restless on Aug 27, 2015 19:50:43 GMT -5
Little jerks. I chased one around my yard with a cast iron pan and rage in my heart two years ago. Never caught him. But I think I scared him enough that he didn't dare to return.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on Aug 28, 2015 10:14:01 GMT -5
LOL Scare the neighbors too?? LOL
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Post by gulfcoastguy on Aug 28, 2015 13:44:47 GMT -5
The groundhog probably thought you were inviting him to be guest of honor at dinner they way would were chasing him with a frying pan.
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Post by restless on Aug 28, 2015 15:55:14 GMT -5
Here is the full story for your amusement: I think I mentioned somewhere else on here that every animal that visits my yard, wild and domestic alike, end up on the patio at some point, looking in the house: neighbor's cats, foxes, deer, ground hogs, you name it. I came home from work on July 2nd, happy to be home and start a few days off. In my small house, you open the front door and can see right to the patio door. My cats are freaking out and a ground hog is looking in the patio door. I just *knew* that the little jerk had been at my garden. Without even stopping to think, I ran to the patio door, grabbing a cast iron skillet off the pot rack on the way, shooed the cats out of the way, and gave chase. I was wearing a skirt and high heeled sandals, FYI, having just come home from work. I chased that little jerk all around my yard screaming and yelling and waving the pan. He had eaten every single one of my bush bean plants down to the dirt. I got pretty close to him. I may have caught him had I had the presence of mind to take off my shoes. But I was just mad and not thinking. I would have staved his little head in had I caught him, too, I was that mad. I chased him out of my yard, went inside, fuming, and prepared to cook dinner. I left the pan by my side on the counter, just in case. My cats alerted me every him he tried to come back into the yard that evening, as they were on the kitchen window sill keeping watch, and each time I grabbed up the pan and gave chase. An hour or so later, The Dude came home and just saw from the look on my face that something had me in a state. When I told him what happened, he laughed and laughed. I can look back now and see that it was funny but I was not pleased at the time. I purchased a have a heart trap and set it, but never caught the little jerk. I saw the groundhog again on July 4th as I was digging up my carrots. I chased him with the rake. Never saw him again. My brother, that same year, was renting a house with a friend where the yard bordered some woods. His sweet old dog had died and he went to the shelter and got a puppy, she's a pit bull or pit bull mix (she's a lot taller than what a pit bull usually is.) His friend had two dachshunds. My brother had a pretty decent garden at the time in the yard of that house: corn, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, collard greens. Groundhogs would come in from the woods and help themselves. One time, my brother was out in the garden working and the two doxies and his puppy were with him. All of the sudden, he hears growling and carrying on and the doxies had caught the ground hog and ended up killing it by the time my brother could get them off of it. Long story short, the two little doxies ended up teaching my brother's pit bull puppy how to kill ground hogs. By the end of the summer, the puppy got pretty big. One time, the puppy got a hold of a ground hog while the two doxies were attached and was shaking all three of them in her mouth. The ground hogs were constantly in the yard and garden. They just didn't learn. After the ground hog episode in my yard, I kind of wanted to borrow the doxies and the pit bull.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on Aug 28, 2015 16:47:00 GMT -5
LOL I especially like "the little jerk"!
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Post by ahntjudy on Aug 28, 2015 17:07:00 GMT -5
That is hilarious, restless... I can picture the whole thing and can totally relate... Good story. I hate and will chase groundhogs too... And the best part is, we just don't give a 'darn' what the neighbors or anybody thinks when we do 'stuff' like that!! It's just normal gardener behavior. ~~~ afterthought...
Maybe we should send restless to get rid of claude's groundhog??? ;)
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Post by binnylou on Aug 28, 2015 19:11:13 GMT -5
Any recipes for groundhog? Maybe roasted whole with a green tomato stuffed in his mouth? I bet you could pressure can them just like beef......might make a good gravy for a winter meal. Over biscuits!!
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Post by gulfcoastguy on Aug 28, 2015 19:14:43 GMT -5
I used to hunt white cabbage moths with a bb gun without any bbs. If I could get with 3 or 4 feet the air blast would knock them down and I could stomp on them. "Be vewy, vewy, quiet. I is ah hunting butterflies!"
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Post by gulfcoastguy on Aug 28, 2015 19:16:18 GMT -5
Well groundhogs is one pest that I don't have so give the recipes to Restless.
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Post by restless on Aug 28, 2015 22:12:24 GMT -5
Hah! Hunting butterflies. I love it. I am sure if the neighbors heard or saw, they were amused. But that's the thing about living in the city. You see all kinds of unusual things. And when your neighors are close, there may not be the kind of privacy in your back yard that you may want. My one neighbor's husband plays the bongo drums while she hoola hoops under their tree while I am pulling weeds 5 feet away. There were a dozen maroon robed Buddhists walking down my street this morning as I was leaving for work. I am sure my pan waving groundhog chase just added some color to their day.
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Post by claude on Aug 29, 2015 9:30:53 GMT -5
Naw, relentless..you just raised the standard:)
This is not my first war with the groundhog. The first was 2yearsago and I replanted my bean row 7 x before I decided to bring my dogs down.. They are restricted to the flat area of my yard by the invisible fence. Then there is a hill and the land becomes flat where the garden is again..inside a 6' fence. The side viewable from the house is of deer fencing..that strong poly stuff. So, I take off the fence collars and take Stan the biggest on a leash inside the garden...then take off the leash. The groundhog was in there hiding and rushed by me, out the gate..Stan followed so fast! The meadow past the garden grows 5' tall..he could hear that groundhog...I'm thinking..if he goes into the meadow..how will I get him? Thankfully he comes to me and we go back in the garden, I close the gate. In less than 10 min he gets 5 voles and I had to rescue a snake. Wow! I wonder how my watchdog would do Pretty boy? So I put Stan in the fence area...and take pretty boy down...PB catches voles so quickly! But the groundhog can be heard in the tall grass..and he is on high alert. I go back up to get Stan..who is howling because I took PB without him..he can hear that groundhog...PB sees me start to go up the hill and tries to jump the deer fence and becomes tangled in it..like a hotdog in a bun, he takes down a part of the fence..I'm afraid he's going to break a leg... And all the while that darn ground hog is making that weird cry...I swear he's laughing at me...
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Post by OregonRed on Aug 29, 2015 10:03:45 GMT -5
LMAO claude, I remember this story!
This morning I woke up to this in my patio:
Rascally Racoons, I think
they were after the hazelnut shells I use on the bottom of the pots, and that's the bag they tore into, it already had a small hole, I had it covered with cloth to block cat pee, they pulled that off...
I be moving that bag of shells to the shed...
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