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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

I'm telling you, old freezers!  No moles!  No rabbits!  And it's good for 
the environment, you're recycling <g>

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene GeRue" <genegerue AT ruralize.com>


> As many gardeners know, the better the soil one creates, the more
> attractive to certain pests. In my case, moles and armadillos. To
> thwart the moles I am conducting an experiment--putting all of my
> urine onto the sod area at the top of the nearly perfect kitchen
> garden directly out from the kitchen window. The results of that
> experiment are as yet unknown but appear promising.
>
> Next up are the armadillos. Thanks to Texans who protected them--grr-- 
> and Midwest warming, they have overpopulated their southern habitat
> and have moved north. When I came here thirty years ago no one had
> ever seen one in the county. They are now one of the common roadkills,
> joining turtles, coons, possums, skunks and squirrels. Insufficient
> numbers are killed by cars and they have overrun woods, pastures,
> lawns and gardens.
>
> When Dax was alive he and Benny would run them down and Dax would one-
> crunch them--over forty-five in a two-month period. Benny is now
> twelve and spends most of every night resting for the hard day
> following, which consists mostly of resting in a cool place. Yes, I
> need a couple of pups.
>
> After replanting the devastated kitchen garden several times I bought
> two-foot fence and a bunch of three-foot metal posts and installed the
> fence on all parts other than the raised stone wall in the front. They
> pushed under the fence. I replanted and installed pins of scrap wood
> and nails, driving the bottom of the fence into the ground. They found
> a weak place. I replanted. I then spent the better part of a day
> loading, hauling and placing rocks--too heavy for them to move with
> their hoglike thick neck muscles--at the outside bottom of the fence.
>
> Three mornings now without having to replant the garden. Unless they
> learn how to climb or fly I think it is good. Now I have only to
> occasionally straighten up the grass clippings that serve as a mulch
> to keep weeds down out from the rocks; they still make their nightly
> rounds and hope springs eternal.
>
> Thinking I have now created a garden fortress, I stepped out yesterday
> afternoon to see a rabbit leap down from the wall and run away. He had
> spotted the waning lettuce and couldn't resist. Sigh.
>
> I'm thinking maybe a welded-wire roofed cage with quarter-inch
> hardware cloth affixed on the interior and with two-foot deep concrete
> footings and a padlocked entry gate.
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