A picture of the enemy. (National Parks Gallery, Public Domain)

By Susan Shanklin

I saw this saying the other day that read, “You don’t stop gardening WHEN YOU GET OLD. YOU GET OLD when you stop gardening.”

Well, that’s good! That means I’m not old because I keep gardening.

Nothing slows down the ticking clock of aging like gardening.

Winter seemed to hang on forever here in Scandia, Minnesota. Grays and browns weighed upon our souls. “Ba humbug” was our demeanor. Oh, when will we see a blade of green grass or a fat, orange- breasted robin?

Slowly, ever so slowly, a blade came. A chilly, orange-breasted robin appeared, and I was ever so ready to crack out the gardening gloves and seed packets.

Oh, but wait, I had a woodchuck living under my shed all last year. “Woody” feasted on my vegetable patch and flower garden ALL summer long.

We tried everything. Dried blood, Epsom salt, hot pepper flakes, and live trapping to no avail. We even borrowed my son-in-law’s BB gun.

Seeing that Tom is the great white hunter that he is, “Woody” just trotted back to his hole after a missed shot, took a snooze, and came back out later for another meal.

I said enough of this!

So, this year, I bought two galvanized planters on legs and had Tom assemble them and put them on the deck. I’ll show you, Mr. Groundhog or Woodchuck or whatever you are! No more free meals at the Shanklins!

I had the vegetable garden figured out, but what about my pride and joy, my flower garden? Woody likes to graze on Blazing Stars, Phlox, Shasta Daisies, and yellow Echinacea plants, too!

I started putting out hot pepper flakes early, just as a friendly reminder that my flower garden is off-limits.

I was a proud momma gardener until I noticed my phlox got a haircut or mow job by Woody.

Someone told me that bubble gum would do the trick. I purchased a pound of bubble gum and put it in “Woody’s hole, along the fence, and in my flower garden.

I got you now, Woody! Plug you up for sure. Go somewhere else or die. I say that as a good Christian woman.

Well, you got it. Woody didn’t have an appetite for bubble gum.

I scour the Internet again and find that mothball scented with peppermint does the trick.

So, now I purchased large mothballs scented with peppermint. I shove one down his hole under the shed, one in the old outhouse joined to the main shed, and one in the shed itself. I throw one in the flower garden and wait.

I check for freshly dug dirt around Woody’s hole each day.

A couple of days go by, and I go out to check the residence of Mr. Woody, and he had flung that scented mothball straight out!

Goodness, sensitive fellow!

Susan shoves that scented mothball right back in his hole and plugs it with rocks.

Seriously, it’s like the two stooges. Me, a grown woman wrestling with a ten-pound groundhog!

I checked today, and I think he has made peace with his mothball scented with peppermint, as his hole is wider, and no mothball is showing.

So, the saga continues. Good over evil.

Conquistador,

Susan

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