No $%%^^& Salsa
23 July 2011
To all you who have raccoons as pets, ARE YOU INSANE?
I live on a forested lot. So yeah, I know I’m sharing habitat with wild creatures. Which is why I do not call the Wildlife Officers every time I see a coyote or a turkey or a deer. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make an exception for raccoons.
A few years back we had a mega problem with raccoons coming into our screened porch, and eating the cat’s food and dumping out water bowls. We got out the size -ate too much cat food big as a bear -humane traps. We were told you had to take raccoons fifty miles away to insure they would not return. But The Prince Consort came up with a plan. He released them in the parking lot, next to the dumpster, of the honky tonk across and three miles down the river. Dumpster scraps and beer bottle dregs, river for water, forest for hiding out. Party on raccoons.
But like weeds, you never get rid of all the raccoons. Apparently it’s a total lie that tomatoes, being from the nightshade family, are poisonous to animals other than humans. So I grew tomatoes on the back deck. Yeah. Right. The raccoons may not have actually eaten the ripe tomatoes, but they had a good old time stripping them off and dumping them all over. So we dug a vegetable garden. Although I voted for a motion-activated laser system with surface to air missiles to keep the raccoons out, The Prince Consort went with the low tech wire fencing. And it worked. I had homemade salsa coming out of my ears. Yum!
Never let it be said I learn my lesson.
This year I saw this really cool container veggie garden. I decided to grow the tomatoes along with herbs and strawberry plants in one decorative giant pot on the front porch. So far none of the creatures had come up on the front porch.
Although when we first moved in I had a close call. I spent thirty minutes crouched below window level while about forty turkeys strolled up and down the driveway and hovered around the front steps. Do you know how big those Thanksgiving feast birds are in real life? Big Bird watch out!
So the tomato plants were going strong on the front porch. YAY! TPC and I had our eyes on one huge tomato. First big and green, then a little orange, redder, and redder. One more day and it would be salsa time!
The next morning, THE DAY for The Tomato, TPC goes out on the porch and whips back in. “Did you already pick The Tomato?”
“No!” I knew which #$%$%^$ creature ate my tomato. They wear a mask over their little bandit faces for a reason. All the little $%%^^% left were seeds and skin in the pot.
So TPC made a cage of the wire fencing right there in the pot. Tomato protection. Another tomato was in the orange about to go reddish stage. Pre salsa. The wire cage worked for one night. The second morning The Tomato was gone and another fully green one, riddled with bite marks, balanced on porch column ledge next to the caged tomatoes.
ARGH!!!
Today we moved the giant pot to the back veggie garden. Placed it far enough from the wire fencing that little bandit hands can NOT help themselves.
Meanwhile, I’m checking out the internet for motion-activated surface to air missiles. While hunting may be prohibited in our subdivision by-laws, there’s not a word on nuclear missiles.
Kath
