peterography

A friend of mine wrote to me . . . “Oh Peter, I was with you all the way until I got to that photo of the two little ones. They are soooo cute. Can’t you sacrifice a little zucchini for the good of nature? Or maybe you can buy a few zukes in the supermarket and the woodchucks would be happy to munch on those and leave the good ones”

It would be nice if there was a way to negotiate with them - pay them protection money in the form of squash and a few tomatoes (did I mention what they did to the tomatoes last year?) in return for being left alone.

I can just see a couple of groundhogs in little fedoras, cheap suits and white ties. One of them is carrying a tiny violin case . . .

“Nice garden ya got here . . . too bad if somethin’ was ta happen to it, you know? ‘Stuff’ happens all da time. Did ya hear about the Heinrich’s garden? Tsk - what a shame! And just because he didn’t support his local ‘businessman’s association’, if ya get my drift. We can arrange that nothin - shall we say, ‘unfortunate’? - should happen to your garden in return for a small consideration. Just a few unmarked zucchinis and tomatoes in a brown paper bag left outside our burrow every Monday . . . “

So I stopped at the Agway on my way home from work and bought some “Revenge Mole and Gopher Smoke Bombs”. These devices produce smoke and carbon monoxide and aphyxiation.

The sky was darkening and the wind was freshening as I hurried home. A storm was coming. I got to my house and filled a wheelbarrow with soil and rocks and parked it outside the burrow entrance. By now the sky was black and the wind revealed the white undersides of the tree leaves. I was glad of the weather because it meant that the groundhogs would have retreated to their den where they felt safe, and also for the dramatic backdrop it provided for what I was about to do.

I tied two smoke bombs together, extended their fuzes and tried to light them. The wind blew out the match. A second attempt produced a steady red shower of sparks from the fuzes. I pushed them deep into the burrow as far as they would go and piled rocks over the entrance. As I tamped dirt on the rocks to make an airtight seal smoke poured out around my shovel, but only at first. The air smelled of sulphur. It started to rain.