Rosendale Ramblings By Sari Botton

Okay, this post is not for the faint of heart, nor for PETA members.

Let me preface this by saying this has become an us versus them kind of situation, and eat-or-be-eaten kind of thing.

Critters have been helping themselves to increasingly sizeable chunks of our garden, snatching up all the edamame before we’ve even had a chance to taste any, sneaking off with whole stalks of broccoli. It bothers me. It really bothers Brian, who is farmer-in-chief here on our little patch of green.

We have been quite diplomatic about this for some time now. As you’ll see in earlier posts of mine from 2006-ish, we started by sprinkling the edges of the yard with Shake Away, essentially canned fox urine, to deter the ground hogs. I could swear I heard the ground hogs laughing at us. Then we bought a Have-a-Heart trap. We caught ground hogs, rabbits, and even an adorable baby skunk, and dutifully relocated them to greener pastures as they stunk up the  car.

But, as we learned last summer, it is illegal to relocate pests. And, as it has finally dawned on us, there is an endless supply of critters. Moving one 10 miles away does not mean you will not see another gnawing on your yellow beans the very next day.

Last night, over happy hour PBRs at Market Market, we compared notes with our friends and neighbors as to how they deal with such intruders. One has been stockpiling interesting recipes for rabbit. Another, who has a rabbit as a pet, has no qualms about taking a pitch fork to interloping ground hogs – and putting it through them.

When we got home, Brian set up the have-a-heart in the garden. I was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of an animal screeching. At 5:45 in the morning, Brian got up and quietly headed outside. I met him down there at 6:30, and he had a strange expression on his face. It was somewhere between apprehension and glee.

“I got rid of the ground hog,” he said – “the” ground hog. As if it were the only one. “How’d you do that?” I asked. “I drowned it in the tub out back.” I had once purchased a scratched up claw foot tub from our neighbors down the block. I’d had designs on taking cool baths on hot nights. I’ve had the tub for three years. So far, no cool baths.

I winced. I don’t like the idea of killing anything, although I eat dead animals all the time. And my neighbors have dogs that kill the ground hogs every day, and no one feels bad about it. It’s the food chain. I somehow found my mind moving on. I was surprised I didn’t dwell on the drowning.

Once Brian saw that I was largely okay, he relaxed and shifted his attention to the set of next pests: the Japanese beetles had had a field day with our raspberries, beans, cherry tree and more. I’m not even a little upset about killing them, no matter how we do it.