The answer to the destruction of our melons is Raccoons, a passel of them! The garden invasion was discovered Monday morning. That night, around midnight, The Farmer was headed to the hay field and he saw beady little eyes in his headlights but then they disappeared. He slowed as he approached the spot where the eyes were and discovered them clinging to the back of the power poles, hiding! They are too dang smart for anyone–
The Son says it’s my fault they invaded. Several months ago a giant raccoon was eating our old kitty’s food in the evening. We figured it out when the old kitty was hungry all the time, so we hid and waited, and there he came–The biggest raccoon I’d ever seen. (The Son says it is the grandpa of the ‘herd’ feasting on the melons!) The Son and The Farmer conspired that the next night they would lay in wait and SHOOT him. I agreed…Until I saw him. Then compassion filled my heart, and my city girl upbringing prevented the murder of the poor innocent soul. I forbade it! We moved the cat’s food to a protected place, and the bandit quit coming.
That brings us to the Watermelons. Whether we intend to or not, we share the garden with deer and raccoons, grasshoppers, cabbage moths and their offspring, Lygus bugs, and yes…even aphids! They don’t always share fairly, and so we have to take steps to ‘terminate’ them…higher fences, electric charges, insect netting, bacillus that kills the green worms, organic pyrethrum, and spinosad. BUT, don’t touch the melons, Raccoons, or it means WAR!
Happy Sunday–The Farmer’s Wife
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