If you scroll back a couple days you may recall my excitement at setting up some vegetable garden test plots this summer. I was keen. I was ready. I even started building little wooden frames to mark off the zones.

Then IT arrived.

Just when I thought I had my rodent problem controlled. I have traps. I edged the yard with a fence and a stone boundary that is tough for mice to sneak under. I bought a new composter with mouse-proof sides. And Sparkle is the ever-vigilant guardian.

But, then IT arrived.

For the second time in a couple days the rat-like silhouette of a full-grown western pocket gopher, Geomyoidea Thomomys, poked its nose from a burrow under the garden. The rodent, roughly the size of a small squirrel (and often mistaken for a mole) has taken up residence a few feet below the ground (I’m estimating) directly under the fence that borders between ours and the neighbor’s yard.

This brings us back to the aforementioned “experiments.” These particular pests, as quoted from Wikipedia “enjoy feeding on vegetables.” Do I need to explain the problem here?

Sigh.