You Can Take The Girl Out Of The Country...

...but apparently you cannot take the country out of the girl's city home's back yard. With the exception of the meandering deer and the occasional black bear, we've got as much wildlife here as we did in Vermont. On 4 1/2 acres of fields and forest you have to expect to see lots of critters, but we've seen plenty in our new neighborhood, and with a much smaller yard to share with the little beasties. It's cute to watch a woodchuck munching wildflowers up on an old cow pasture overlooking your old farmhouse, all bucolic and earthy, but when it's eating all the tops off the sunflowers you're trying really hard to grow in a little 2' by 3' flower bed, well- it's just kind of annoying.

I call him "Little Fatty". He's not really that fat, but he rolls around in the grass eating clover (when he's not munching the Gerber daisies and other fauna) scratching himself, with his bad boy, woodchuck attitude as if to say, "What you lookin at, lady? How bout you make yourself useful and get me a beer, eh?" Oh, the little dickens.

Whenever David sees him out the window, he gives him the same treatment he gives all the squirrels who try and eat the bird seed, and runs out the back door, screaming like a banshee. Little Fatty waddles under the shed and then goes and does who knows what under there. I heard that if you keep mothballs in the area they visit, they will keep away, but these guys are persistent. Any suggestions out there? I will overnight you some lovely sunflowers...