Rodents on Stilts

Mom and I have been working so hard on the garden. She grew all the plants from seeds and I have been out there babying them, picking off every last cabbage looper, treating every ant mound, singing to them, petting them, you get the idea.

I brought hubby up there Sunday afternoon and we made plans to take down the existing electric fence and fence in the entire upper pasture with high fencing, more than doubling the size of the garden and allowing us to access all parts through one gate. Right now I have a hodgepodge of fences that I've added on as I need more room.

I went up there yesterday afternoon to finish planting the last of the seedlings and came across near total destruction!

The romaine was eaten off as was most of the cabbage. Half the chard, collards, and cauliflower. The broccolirabe was stripped of its leaves, but I think it will recover. We lost several broccoli. They even sampled the dill!

Hoof prints were everywhere. I believe they snuck in through the fence wires on the south end of the garden. It was like they spent an hour at the "buffet" sampling every last little plant I had tucked in every corner of the garden. Jerks. I'm convinced the only good deer is a deer in the freezer.

I knew that if I didn't take drastic action, the bits that remained would be taken out overnight. I took down the solar fence charger, stuffed my pockets with the money I'd made selling the minimancha doelings, trekked off to TSC, and picked out the meanest A/C charger I could find.

The new charger can't be put out in the elements like the solar charger, so I had to devise a protective box for it and run a drop cord to the barn for juice. I'm rather proud of my handiwork. Zip ties are almost as good as duct tape in DIY projects.

I hope my chickens are smart enough to stay away from it! Then I grabbed the cattle panels we'd used to trellis tomatoes this summer and ran them along the inside of the rabbit fence on the south end in hopes that they'd get a good zapping trying to come in the way they did the previous night.

All in all, I spent over $150 and an entire afternoon putting a bandaid on a fence that we're replacing anyway! I guess I can justify it in that we were going to need the charger for Westley anyway and now we don't.

I haven't checked the garden yet this morning. Pray my defensive measures worked!