You all probably know I love to garden. 

Well, by now I’ve started to put the flower beds to rest for the long winter ahead, but I’ll tell you about my August/September problem. And it turned out to be a BIG problem. 

It seems we had a gopher invade our lawn. Well, at least that’s what I thought it was. I even looked up pictures of it and, yep, seems like that’s our guy. Well, the little bugger was living in the culvert that goes from one side of our driveway to the other and would come out to eat. It was eating the clover and I thought, great, I gotta deal with that clover at some point anyway, so have at it. 

Well, fast forward through to September and – dang it! – it turns out that it wasn’t a gopher at all. I discovered it, one morning, standing on its hind legs eating – EATING! – my flowers in the very large pots on our front porch. It stood 14-16 inches, and that ain’t no gopher. Gophers weigh between one and two pounds, and this was much bigger than a couple pounds. So back to Google I went and, lo and behold, it turns out that it’s a groundhog, otherwise known as a woodchuck. 

Okay, so this means war. I tolerated it for the previous month because it wasn’t doing any serious damage, so I thought, and then to find it eating my petunias and brand new phlox in my brand new front bed, plus it started on my Montauk daisy that I’ve been babying since last fall, and I’d had enough. 

Out came the animal trap. As you are reading this, I’d like to say we caught the woodchuck, but I can’t, so you’ll have to stay tuned to my future Softer Side and I’ll put a side note in to let you know how this terrible saga ended either for me or the woodchuck. 

I’m sure reading this, what comes to mind, is the following, which I’ll end on: 

“How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” 

Editor’s notes…. 30-aught-6 comes to my mind Anne. 

Just saying.