The Last Straw?

So now we have a resident groundhog. I saw it in the driveway a few weeks ago - and then discovered a hole in the deer fence around our vegetable garden and our cucumber vines had been rather thoroughly. It's been years and years since we had a groundhog. The past groundhogs were what caused me to stop growing green beans because the row of beans would get up to where the plants had a couple of nice looking leaves and then I would go out the next day and it would look like a lawnmower had gone down the row. Two inches of stalk sticking up. No leaves. So now we have a groundhog. It appears that it does not, so far, eat tomato or squash plants. Or peppers. Or arugula (rocket). And as our cucumber vines are growing inside cages (so they can climb rather than sprawl) the parts of the vines that are taller than a groundhog are still alive - maybe we'll get a cucumber or two.

Admittedly this isn't a great photo but the damned thing is fast ! And very wary. All I have to do is open the front door and it's gone like a shot. In this photo it is outside the door to our vegetable garden. We have tried to shore up the area where it was entering. Probably hopeless.

A groundhog, which is a rodent - a ground squirrel - a marmot, is definitely cute. But.