Yesterday morning I woke to three young raccoons in my backyard. They were digging hard in the fruit crate planters. I yelled out the window for them to stop. Miraculously, they did. They got out of the planters and went looking about under the cedars. But by the time I got myself together, I realized what they were after. Slugs!
I had petunias in those planters, along with some alyssum (eaten by squirrels) and blue lobelia (nearly indestructible). About three weeks ago, when all this rain started, I noticed a number of rusty red slugs in those pots, especially on the petunias. I made the mistake of picking one off of the plant. Its slime was tenacious and staining. I scrubbed for quite a while and still had red fingers. So, because I needed gloves to pull them off of the plants and getting gloves means going into the house and then coming back to the planter, I mostly ignored the problem. Least of my concerns, I figured, and they were bound to be eaten by all the birds.
Except the birds didn’t like them either. The slug population exploded and the petunias were turned into skeletons. Still… least of my problems. It’s almost time for mums, anyway.
So yesterday, the raccoons pretty much cleaned out the slugs. They dug into the planters and sort of ruined things, but there are no more slugs. I think this is a win. Plus, they were adorable. While I was looking down on them from my bedroom window, one climbed into the cedars apparently just to get a better look at me. He sat there looking back at me and sniffing, as though trying to determine if I were edible. Or maybe something with teeth… Eventually, it was determined that I was uninteresting, and he went back down to eat more slugs.
They doddered around the backyard with that funny raccoon walk. (Why are their back legs so much longer anyway?) They climbed everything. They sampled the basil and decided that was disgusting. But all three of them in turn had to nibble it to make sure it was, in fact, not raccoon food. One sat on my lounge chair for a while as though trying to understand the purpose of these weird human things. And it’s uncanny how much like human children they are. The way they pick up things and study them… and if it’s good they either shove it in their mouth or hide it away, but they do not share. They turn everything over to get at the underside. I suppose, because slugs… And they fall into tussles every few minutes over nothing at all. Then when that gets old, in like thirty seconds, they brush themselves off, sometimes literally, and go back to sniffing around.
I should mention that it was raining yesterday. Well, it’s been raining… but we got about 2.5 inches yesterday. So these three youngsters were all soaked, with clumped fur sticking out in all directions, like they’d just got out of bed for Saturday cartoons. Every now and then, one or another would lay off the slug feast and go sit under the cedars where it’s dry. But that never lasted long. I don’t think they like being wet, but the slugs were too tempting.
So that planter is ruined now, but as I said, it’s almost time for mums. Nobody eats mums. Except the groundhog, now and again.
It seems that the infant that was left behind under my front porch has gone back to the burrow under the bank. He is now about three times as big as when I first saw him early in the summer. That day, I was working on the house side of the street and I saw Mama Marmot climbing into the radish bin. I dashed across the street and chased her back to the burrow under the bank. But as I stood there muttering at the nerve of some beasts, this ball of fluff comes ambling right up to my shoes and sat down. I could have reached down and picked him up. Instead, I told him to go away. But he just sat there blinking up at me.
I walked away in disgust… I guess I am not fierce…
Anyway, he’s back and hard at work putting on the pounds by eating through my garden. He’s wrecked squashes wherever he can get to them. He ate all the radish greens and sat on the carrots. He broke several onions trying to get to the cucumber vines. He even ate a few of the sweet pepper plants. I’ve never known any rodent to eat the nightshades. Notably, he is ignoring all the tomatoes, though the squirrels are having fun digging up the young plants, and tossing them about, paper pots and all. And nobody is touching the potatoes which are amazing this year. If the tubers are half as exuberant as the greens I’m going to have a bumper crop.
I finally planted my sunflowers, zinnias and marigolds this weekend. I usually plant these around midsummer for fall flowers, but I’m behind. Not as bad as last year, by any stretch. But still behind. In this case, it might be working out in my favor though. I put the sunflowers in the pea cage and in the center of the cucumber and sweet potato bed. Tomorrow, I will go buy some netting to drape over both beds. With any luck that will keep the hog out, and it might even hinder the squirrels long enough for the plants to grow. Might…
I also spread more seaweed fertilizer. This has the effect of making my garden smell like Coney Island at low tide. I am not sure I like it. But it is great general purpose fertilizer, and it makes a pretty good mulch to block the annual weeds. And the best thing is I’m pretty sure the rodents hate it. No digging happens where I spread the seaweed. I had put down some on the mound earlier in the growing season. None of the plants with seaweed around them have been touched since. So I ordered more and spread it everywhere. I will probably not be popular with the neighbors, but I don’t know that I care that much. The house that is closest and downwind is a rental that perpetually smells of bad pot, which is not far off of skunk. So seaweed is actually sort of refreshing by comparison.
In any case, it is ocean time in my calendar. This time of year is when I like to think about the miraculous life in the deep waters. I try to make a pilgrimage to the shore at least once sometime around Lughnasadh. I always come back with pockets full of flotsam — odd shaped driftwood, shells, rounded stones and bits of glass, fishing lures and bobbers, and whatever else catches my eye. I once found a couple mermaid’s purses on Cape Cod, proof that there are sharks in those waters. (The mermaid’s purse is the leathery casing that protects a baby shark.) I also once tried picking up a crab’s claw that seemed to be lying on the wet sand. Turned out the claw was still attached and fully functional. Thereafter followed undignified squawking… I will never understand why anyone would want to eat those things. They’re big scary bugs. Not at all food…
And on big scary bugs that are not food except when they are… the cicadas are here in Vermont. It is not quite the plague that was expected, but the afternoons are full of their rasping drone. This, along with the call of red-winged blackbirds, is the sound of summer for me. It calms me, calling up impressions of past contentment. I must stop and listen.
I have not yet seen them, but they are in every tree singing away. They have eaten a fair number of leaves. I have a few gooseberries that are skeletons now. But I think I will take the skeletons in exchange for cicada song on a hot afternoon.
I have seen far more insects this year than I’ve seen in a while. This might be because it was such a warm winter. There are some terrifyingly large mosquitos buzzing around the jungle. But mostly I think it’s because my perennial gardens are starting to mature, and there are flowers that are food rather than ornament. I have many kinds of bees and wasps. There are hoverflies and lightning bugs again. I have the good kind of ladybugs in the garden, not those foul smelling Asian things that infest window wells. (Not in this house yet, touch wood.) And I’ve seen butterflies. Actual plural. Not just cabbage whites, though there are many of those.
As I was watching the raccoons tear up my planter in search of slugs, I mumbled down at them “This isn’t some wildlife refuge, you know…” But the more I think about that, the more I think… it really is. I have the usual groundhogs and squirrels and chipmunks. But I also have an angry skunk, a fox family, and what is probably a porcupine living under the old apple trees down at the very bottom of the jungle… where I never go. I’ve seen more birds here in the middle of this town than I ever did in Massachusetts out in the boondocks. I have a nesting pair of peregrine falcons. Isn’t that incredible! And then there are the crows and chickadees who will follow me around, offering commentary and advice. There are also bats and nightjars here this year, presumably eating the enormous mosquitos. Still no swallows, but who knows… maybe they’ll return some day.
It doesn’t take much. Just a few flowers, some water, and refusing to spread poison all over the property. Gives one hope in these days of extinction… just a few flowers…
More garden pictures…
And since I had the camera out…
This also happened this weekend…
©Elizabeth Anker 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 
It is a joy to see your garden! I follow much the same approach as you do and am thrilled with the ‘life’ my garden supports. As for your baking … I would enjoy coming to tea 🙂
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Very kind of the raccoons to rid you of the slugs but too bad about the petunias. And oh, that darn groundhog! You do indeed have a wildlife refuge! The garden and bread and muffins are a feast for the eyes.
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