The Compost Bin

To stop (or at least slow down) my woodchuck invasion the first thing I did was retrace his steps. There was an obvious hole in the vegetable garden fence (buried bird netting on 2x2 posts) that he must have bit his way through. So I knew how he got into the garden area. But where did he get into the yard?

Ah-ha! Here's the hole. Now if this was where he lived, all I would need is some dynamite and the woodchuck problem would be over. But this is just a short tunnel that goes from my neighbor's yard, under our fence and into my yard.



Now over the past two weeks, I've filled this hole in at least 4 times. And if you look closely, you can even see the chicken wire that I buried in there too. It's right next to the buried hose that I use to get water up to the garden. Every time I fill in the hose or block it with chicken wire, a big heavy bag of dirt or anything else I can get my hands on, the woodchuck just keeps digging until he gets around my obstacle. Sure is a persistent little varmit.

It seems like I'm going to lose the battle to keep the woodchuck out of my yard so I'm going to fall back and concentrate on protecting the vegetable garden instead. This war is not over yet.

There's nothing worse than losing a loved one. In this case that loved one was a bumper crop of bok choy.

I started the seeds under lights in my basement at the end of winter. Then I went to the effort to build a makeshift hoop house to keep the bok choy warm when I transplanted them outside. They even survived a couple of frosts under the hoop house and now that it's bok choy eating time I will have to go to the produce store. I have nothing to show for all of that effort because of a woodchuck.

Whether you call them woodchucks or groundhogs they are the mortal enemy of the vegetable gardener. And this woodchuck must be opening up his fortune cookie by now because he ate an entire raised bed full of Chinese take-out.

Putting up a stronger fence around my vegetable garden has been moved up to the number one priority on my To Do List. The current fence (that the woodchuck bit through) worked fine for the past two years. I just took a roll of bird netting and attached it to 2x2s around the garden. I also buried it under the ground so that nothing could tunnel underneath it.

But I guess after two years out in the elements, it got weak enough that it became the appetizer for this fat woodchuck. And by the way, this happened a few weeks ago but I'm a bit behind with my blogging lately. In my next few posts I'll describe what I've done to keep this pest out of my garden.

Yes, my name is Anthony and I'm from New Jersey and I have ducks in my pool.


But I'm not the Tony that you're thinking off.

I had a great looking bird feeder until recently. It was made of wood and modeled to look like a little book shop.

The squirrel that left this mess must have thought that the seeds would come out faster if he tore the door off. Not too far from this crime scene were the rest of the scattered remains, little books, a sign that said Book Shop and some mini window boxes with little pansies in them. Oh the humanities! With all the doo-dads ripped off it's just a white house now.

It's a good thing the book store was closed at the time and no innocent readers were injured.

Squirrels of New Jersey, you suck!

I was at work the other day when my wife called. Lately when she calls, I pick up the phone and hear my 4 year old son’s voice.

"Hi, Daddy, do you want to play eye spy?" That’s good for a laugh no matter how many times I try to explain to him that we need to be together when we play eye spy. But today’s call was different.

My kids were both shouting, "Daddy, we got a turkey, there’s a turkey!"

"There’s a turkey on the porch,” my wife added. “He’s looking in the window, what do you think I should do?"

Having a turkey in the yard isn’t a big deal really. We get them all the time. I’ve even seen one come down out of my kid’s clubhouse and down the slide.

"Did you take any pictures? I can blog about it."
"He’s standing near your turkey fryer. Thanksgiving was four months ago, you think that you’d have put the fryer away by now."
"See if you can get a picture of him standing near the fryer."
"The kids want to go outside," she said completely ignoring my comment. She’s great at that. I’ve wasted some of my best humor on this woman.

"And he’s pooping all over the place. You need to clean that up when you get home."
"Just open the door and shoo him away."
"He’s hoping around, I think he’s hurt."
"Why didn’t you say so? You better call animal control if he’s hurt."

When we had a giant snapping turtle in our yard, animal control found a turtle nest with eggs across the street from my house so they said they couldn’t move the mother turtle. Hopefully, they’ll be of more help this time.

So I called back an hour later to see what happened and my wife told me that Animal Control sent a tiny little women with a giant net to capture the turkey. Really, a giant net? Like a fishing net? No, more like a butterfly net but bigger.

“So did she catch the turkey?"
"No, he hopped around and then flew away.”
“So that was it?”
"Yeah and you better clean up the porch when you get home."

Thankfully this is one critter that never found his way to my yard. I guess porcupines and snapping turtles don't get together much to talk about hot spots.

Actually this picture was taken the last time I took my kids to the Bergen County Zoo. But could you imagine walking out to your garden, looking up in a tree and seeing one of these 30 plus pound porcupines? Yikes!

Yikes! The lastest critters to stop by my yard for a visit were some wild turkeys. These things are huge and creepy looking. I definitely prefer the Butterball variety.

These wild turkeys are pretty bold too. They weren't scared of me at all. They didn't even move when I tried running towards them and shouting about how much I loved deep fried turkeys. I had to frisbee some garbage cans lids their way to get them to fly away.

Let's see, this year we got visits from a Giant Turtle, the Angry Duck, the Baby Bunny and that Corn Loving Squirel.

Hmmm, it might be time to buy big dog to chase all these critters away.

Have you ever tried to take a picture of a hummingbird in flight? Well I tried unsuccessfully for way too long (as my wife was so helpful to point out). So here's a few pictures of hummingbirds sitting still. In flight, they are amazing looking but much too quick (for me anyway) to capture the moment on disk.

These hummingbirds live at my Dad's house in rural CT. Taking the kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa is always a lot of fun.

And I think that taking a 1/2 hour sitting by the window to take some pictures for my blog is time well spent. The kids (ages 2 & 4) are going to create havoc whether I'm watching them or not. :)

This duck is pissed off at me. Why? Well every spring him and his wife spend a few weeks in my pool. They have a standing reservation for the time between the ice melting and before I open the pool. They swim, they sit in the sun, they order pina coladas and enjoy my hospitality. Last year we never opened the pool so they enjoyed an extended visit. This year though, the pool is a mess and that means that their little New Jersey vacation spot is closed for renovations. Sorry ducks, no refunds. While your here though, feel free to enjoy the last patch of grass that the construction crew didn't rip out.