Well some of you might not find this funny but I still smile when I think about it.
Early one Saturday morning I was watering my garden and my neighbor next door let her dog out to do his business. She came out and was talking to me while watching her dog. After a few minutes the dog, which was very small, started chewing on one of my plants I had planted just a few days before. I looked at my neighbor as if to say "Please remove your dog". She did nothing and the dog kept chewing and finally I had had enough and proceeded to spray the dog with a very strong stream of water. I must say it worked rather well and told my neighbor that I'll bet he won't do that again. She keeps him on a leash now.
Jim

Ok,I will choose one of my many Vole stories,I have a Vole ,well I know I have more than one, but, there is one I have gotten to know!This little creature is not remotely intimidated be me what so ever.Gramma and I were sitting on my porch chit chatting and relaxing,I had a few pots of Coneflowers ready to go to a friends house sitting in a few pots next to us.First we hear the rustling coming from the ivy,then we see the little face poke out and look at us.He then preceded to jump into one of the pots of coneflower,stretch,yawn and began to just munch away! I thought Gramma was going to fall backwards in her chair she could not believe how bold he was! Well I started to try to run him off with loud noises and movements,he just looked at me while munching away on the Coneflower,as if I was there to entertain him during his meal! So then I grab a glove and start to wave it at him ,hoping he would just run off and leave them alone,so I could get them to my friend with leaves on them!I tried this for a few minutes,all the while Gramma is just watching in amazement...lol..I am sure at my antics as much as the Voles stubborn ways,I dont think she believed me when I told her other happenings with this particular Vole.Finally, I just put the glove on and scooped him out with my hand,he reluctantly made a very noisy exit back into the ivy.Gramma just looked at me with her mouth wide open and eyes as big as saucers,I then asked her..."Do you believe me now?" Needless to say, she never doubted me again when I told her about how bold this little guy is!

I am sure there will be funnier stories posted,but this is one I do love to tell,because the very thought of the look on Grammas face as well as the Voles,makes me smile and I hope it has made a few of you smle too! ~Angie

Several years ago we had a herd of goats with one billy goat that we called Rambo. He would butt you if he got a chance and was always getting out the pen and eating my flowers. One day I cam home from work for lunch and the whole herd was out eating on my azaleas for their lunch. Here I am all dressed up in hose and nice shoes running around trying to get the goats back in the pen. Rambo did not want to go in and kept rearing up wanting to butt me. There was a shovel nearby and I picked it up and gave him a good tap on his horns and he headed back in the pen. After that if he got out, all I had to do was get the shovel and he would head for the pen.
My husband got quite a laugh over this story and still tells people what I did. Annette

Hi This is an embarrassing story about me and a squirrel. I was keeping my 3 grand sons at the time this happened.
It didn't happen in the garden but in my garage. I went out in the garage for something. When I did this squirrel started coming towards me. When he did I grabbed a broom to hit him with. When I did he charged me and jumped on me. By this time the 3 grands hear me screaming. They come out to see what was going on. They see this squirrel climbing up and down on me. He would climb up and down my body, and tried to get on top of my head. I tried to catch him and fling him off. About the 6th time, he did his climbing maneuver, I finally got a hold on him and flung him on the ground. Every time I flung him down, he kept coming for more. This went on about 3 times. I finally got a hold on him and flung him real hard on the ground. All of this time with all the climbing and flinging the children are laughing their little heads off.
But you know what when that squirrel ran off, he ran like someone had shot him. To this day I've not had another encounter with that rascal again.
True story,
Linda

My memory gets the best of me now that I'm in the 40+ era on my life. One morning I was leaving for work and I started to leave the house when I started wondering if I had turned off the coffee pot. I stopped the car and ran back in the house leaving my car door open. Once in the house I realized I had turned it off and headed towards the door when the phone rang. It was a neighbor who needed information regarding a form for the home owners association. (my husband is the president). Well after about 5 minutes on the phone I was finally able to leave the house for work. I ran back to the car got in and headed out of the subdivision. I got about a block away from my house and I swore I saw something move in my rear view mirror. I looked over my shoulder at the same time a squirrel jumped into the front seat. I slammed on the breaks and started screaming my head off. The squirrel wasn't thrilled either. He started bouncing off of the windows and made the worse screams himself I've ever heard. I jumped out of my car just short of my neighbors mailbox and ran into her yard. Well the squirrel was bouncing from one end of my jeep to the other. Did I mention in my fast exit of the car I slammed the door shut. I caught my breath finely and returned to the car to open the door. There we were just staring at each other until he decided to return to the back seat and have a stand off. By now a car had stopped to see if I was OK and he about fell over laughing when I told him a squirrel was trying to hitch a ride. Being the brave man that he was he took a stick to try and coax him out. I guess by now the squirrel had had enough. He jumped on my front seat and leaped right on the man's shoe. Ever see a grown man yell and jump around like a girl. You would have thought he was battling with a cobra. Well to make a long story even longer the squirrel runs up the street to climb a tree and I'm laughing so hard my side hurt. Squirrel 1 humans 0. Well you think that's the end right? Oh no, later that hot 90 degree summer day I return to my car at the end of the day to notice a vile odor in my car. Yup you guessed right! Mr. Squirrel left me more than a memory. He had made pee pee on my floor board carpets. Forty five dollars later at the car wash and an attendant that said this was a story to tell his future grandkids. To this day I still get nervous looking into my rear view mirror but I'll never run back into the house leaving my door open again. P.S. hubby thought it would be cute to buy a stuffed toy squirrel and put it in my back seat a few weeks later. I was not amused!!!
Arlene

As a teenager we lived in a suburan neighborhood. My grandmother would come over to help my mom work in the yard. Mind you if you let out gas the whole neighborhood would hear you.

My mom gave me kitchen duty while the two of them went outside to work in the yard. I was looking out the kitchen window and some of the neighbors were standing in a group looking over at our house. I wondered what was so interesting.

I went to the other window and there was my mom and grandma bent over on their knees, attached to the back of my grandmothers sweater was her huge bra. When she did laundry it got attached to her sweater in the dryer. My grandma didnt work much in the yard after that. Rest her soul I miss her........

The squirrel gardener:

I had seen a squirrel digging in my grapes area. At the end of summer I had 3 huge indian corn plants in my grape area. I didn't get to eat the corn, but it was interesting to look at.

In early spring of this year I had a terrible problem with slugs. Went and bought a 12 pack of beer. Had saucers and pie plates everywhere in my flower gardens filling each one with the beer.Was almost finished when I looked up and saw this man in a suit with a bible walking up my driveway.He introduced himself and was looking around at all the beer cans throughout the yard. He started conversation about groups available to help people with their drinking problems...A.A.meetings and such. How drinking makes you do things you normally wouldn't do and so on. I couldn't get a word in so I let him go on for a few minutes. Finally I just bursted out and said I had enough...I was in the process of killing them all. By the time morning gets here..they will all be dead. I rattled off how important to me my babies were and ain't no creature gonna destroy what I sprouted.I'd kill them all. By now that preacher man was ready to call 911 or the men in white coats on me. He starts praying for me and my worries. After he finished I told him I wasn't drinking the beer and I was killing my slugs. He turned to me with embarrassment and left. I don't know if it was him praying for my worries...THE SLUGS...or the beer but I was so glad to get rid of the slugs. Never seen that preacher man on our street again...Imagine that...

Sorry I don't have a pest story to contribute - with a 7 ft. chain link fence and a Newfie, most critters keep a healthy distance (good thing; well-meaning Newfie's disaster enough!). I'm enjoying these stories, though! :)

One night last summer while I was taking my German Shepherd out for a bathroom break, I noticed some deer eating my habanero plants. Yes, my habanero plants. I was so amazed, I forgot about Otto. Since he had grown up around horses and other farm animals, he thought it might be nice to go play with the deer. After making a hasty but silent stalk to where the deer were he jumped out of hiding only to be confronted by an eight point who didn't like being startled. I came to find out later that the deer was rescued as a fawn by one of my neighbors and had been raised around dogs. No wonder it decided to stand it's ground. The deer lunged at him with it's antlers which inadvertantly got tangled in Otto's collar. The deer started making the most ungodly noises, Otto started yelping and both of them were jumping and kicking like crazy! Well, six habanero plants, about a dozen cabbages and two rows of tomatoes later, they got free and went their seperate ways. FAST! Needless to say the deer stayed away from the garden and Otto stayed away from the deer the rest of that summer!

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Well, Im not a very good story teller but I am gonna give this a shot...

Last easter, we were in a new home with a large yard. My kids wanted to do an easter egg hunt " in the yard ". I had my hubby go outside in the morning to "hide" the eggs, so they would not get full of bugs over night. After he was done hiding them, the kids were inside hunting eggs. My husband was in the kitchen, and all of a sudden yelled, " he is stealing the eggs !!" We all went running to the kitchen, I was expecting to see a kid out in the yard taking eggs. WELL, a squirrel was hanging upside down in a tree, grabbing the easter egg on the ground. I hurried and grabbed the camera to catch the crook in the act...LOL I took his picture, we all had a good laugh and went back to hunting eggs inside, and all of a sudden my son said, " mom, if we dont get outside Im not gonna have any eggs left to find"....there went a squirrel across the yard with another egg in his hand, he carried the egg all the way up the tree with him, cracked the egg open, took out the peanut butter cup, and ate it WRAPPER AND ALL !!!

The moral to this story is DO NOT use candy that has peanut butter in them...because they left all the other eggs alone!!

well,this summer my mom and my aunt who lives in a different country were visiting me for a month.My aunt got very homesick after a couple of weeks so I put her to work in my garden,my mom also decided to join in and we all loved tredging out to the garden together everyday to pull weeds and plant seedlings.My 7 year old son also loves my garden and is always leaving toys around,so when my aunt saw a rubber snake she thought nothing of picking it to playfully throw it at my mom,only it wasn't my sons snake,it was real.So here I am in the garden with these two 70 something year old women screaming and my mom whips off her wig and starts slapping at the spot the snake landed with it,apparently thinking this would scare it off.I was laughing so hard it was impossible to help either of them.

Mine is a love story. My grandparents lived in very rural Okalahoma and didn't have electricity or running water until the 60's. But they always had flowers as well as a huge garden. Each spring my Papa would hook up the mule to the plow and proceed to dig a huge (1 acre) flower bed for my Granny on either side of their drive. In the evenings as they sat on the porch Granny would look over and smile at my Papa and always said, "Don't you just love flowers" as she patted my Papa. Granny and Papa Flowers are gone now and we 60+ grandkids still talk about that summer evening ritual of my Granny's.

I still grow descendants of those summer flowers in my garden here in Florida and miss and love my Oklahoma "Flowers".

"Plant it, and they will come." My yard and gardens have become a field of dreams for every critter that lives to destroy gardens--rabbits, voles, mice, gophers, squirrels, rats, and deer. Though I hate them all, deer in particular vex me. One morning I got up and discovered that dozens of lilies and every bud on over 30 roses had been severed, just before they were about to open into glorious flowers. I felt like crying--for weeks I had been anticipating how beautiful they would be, and in one night, theyÂd all been ruined. Looking at how high up the damage occurred, I knew it had to be a deer that was responsible.

Later that day I was forking mulch into my cart using my trusty, wicked-looking 8-tine hayfork when I looked up and saw, in a clearing that bordered my property and my neighbor's, a huge, fat (from eating my plants, no doubt) deer. I waved my hands, jumped up and down, hollered nasty things, but the deer just stared back at me calmly. I thought of my ruined roses and lilies, the creature's nonchalant behavior, and my blood boiled. Screaming like a banshee, I picked up the fork, held it in front of me like a weapon, and charged up the hill toward the clearing and the deer. Mad as I was, I never would've actually stabbed the deer, at least I don't think so, but as it turned out, an uneven spot in the yard made it a moot point. Running full tilt, still screaming, I tripped, and as the fork dropped, the tines stuck in the ground while the handle flipped up. It stopped, but I didn't; I pitched forward and hit the handle of the fork with my chest, my mouth clamped shut on my tongue, and I fell down choking and spitting blood.

By the time I got my breath back, I was sitting on my duff, blood running down my chin and neck as I clutched my bruised sternum. I looked up to see that the deer had moved on, but my new neighbors, who'd moved in the week before, were staring at me in horror. It turns out they had been outside when they heard me screaming and thought I was charging THEM with the fork--they hadn't even noticed the deer, only the crazy woman running toward them. When the 8 stitches in my tongue had healed, I thought I better explain to them, but despite that, they've never really become friendly or warmed up to me. Of course, maybe my husband stabbing the ground with a butcher knife trying to kill gophers might have something to do with it, but that is another story.

Kate

I have a little mouse story,,
It was early spring, just got my boys off to school, getting my first cup of coffee just as I was lifting it up for a drink I felt these awful picking nails on the top of my foot, as I looked down I started yelling and doing a circle dance, round and round flinging my coffee every where, trying to throw him off my foot this little mouse was grey and only about 2" long, but the funniest part was that I had 3 cats just standing there watching this crazy episode happening to me and they didn't even blink. Finally tossed him off my foot, stopped screaming and looked at those cats and said ( this is not a Tom and Jerry cartoon you guys), it tokk me the rest of the morning to clean up all the coffee mess. I bought a trap.

My pest experience occurred a few years ago, back when we lived two zones warmer in an area southeast of Houston. We had had one of those rare nights when the temperature dropped below 32 F, and I had attempted to protect one of the tropicals in my front yard by covering it with a paper bag. I used the metal stakes that I nail my Christmas lights into the ground to hold the bag in place. The following morning, while taking the stakes out of the ground, I noticed a smell that was both familiar and disgusting at the same time. What is that?! Puzzled, I mulled it over while removing the rest of the stakes. Then, it hit me - Dog Pee!!! Horrified, I sniffed my bare hands that had touched most all of the stakes. Sure enough, Dog Pee!!! Already disheartened at the night's temperature and its effects on my tropicals, I ran fast and furious to the nearest sink and scrubbed as thoroughly as possible. Then, I scrubbed my metal stakes. Back out at the poor bag, there was, sure enough, the tell tale stain covering the bottom portion of one side of the bag. As you might expect, I had a neighbor across the street that let her dog run loose constantly, and constantly he was peeing (and pooping) all over everything, everywhere, nailed down or not. Sometimes I wonder if he was the cause of all those Houston flood warnings - ha ha. Don't know which was worse, him or the other neighbor who stood in front of me and watched her dog pee directly on my Christmas lights without saying a word. Dogs, dogs, dogs (or is it neighbors, neighbors, neighbors), I haven't looked at them the same ever since, and you won't ever catch me planting herbs or other edibles anywhere outside my backyard fence.

is anyone else having a problem with the right hand words being cut off? sorry to intrude on the story telling but i can't read any of them entirely. and one of you had me rolling on the floor. great stories.

flowersoffate...if you go to the bottom of your screen, there is a blue toolbar, similiar to the oe you use to go up and down...it has arrows to make the screem go left and right, use that to read the right side of the stories, I hope this is easy to understand and helpful !

WOW there are some great stories ! Thanks for sharing !

Flowersoffate,

The large photo earlier in the thread is what makes the rest of the posts too wide also. I was able to minimize my print size (hit the minus key to the top right of the number keypad repeatedly) and reduce the size of everything. Fortunately, it all fit on the screen before it got too small to read! I have a hard time using the scroll bar at the bottom to move the page back and forth...always lose track of what line I'm on :) Oh, just hit the plus key repeatedly over to the right of the number keypad afterwards to get everything full size again.

Sure are some funny stories from everyone.

Well, a couple of years ago, I moved back to my old country home that had no one living there for a few years. I had raised my kids there before moving. Approx. 8 acres with tons of yard way out about 5 miles down dirt road. So I spent weekends and extra days off work and took a long time to get gardens moved and yard fixed and things going good and remodeling! Finally, moved in after about a year and my yard looking good and flowerbeds doing great! Then one beautiful spring day, I took my 3 grandsons home with me for the day! Ages 3, 5, and 9 then. They were off playing while I did some housework and sewing. I had been having a problem with voles or moles (not really sure which is which, or if even the same things!!! Just horrible nuisances). I suppose they had heard me talking to my daughter about them and what to do. We had many opinions!! Not sure if any would work!!
Well, about an hour later I heard water running outside and went out to see what it was! I had trenches all over my yards, even through my flowerbeds!! 3 filthy little boys with shovels, hoes, and waterhose and digging out all the long raised areas of dirt where the darn critters were going along in the yard (and flower beds of course!!).They were digging and running water in the trenches! Of course the dirt is already dug and soft so in an hour they had went along ways with the destruction!! I usually am pretty easygoing with them as little boys should have fun, but I was tired and had done tons of work to move back! I just started crying!! They didn't see this from Grandma!! The 3 year old, Stoney Matthew, came running over and patted my leg, saying "Gamma, it's ok, we didn't really kill one yet" At that point, they had no idea I was upset about the total disaster in the yard! They thought I was crying because I thought they had killed a varmint!!
Well, needless to say they didn't get in trouble! I let them clean up in the waterhose and we changed clothes and went in and had a snack. Then we went to the creek and went fishing the rest of the day. I could always work on the yard another day!! (Which took many days to repair!!)
I'll always remember the innocent look on their dirty little faces until I am gone. Looking back it is funny, but at the time it wasn't!
Melinda

Wow! All these stories are fun!

This happened when we had just moved to South Carolina. My DH was sick and staying home, so I came home from work during lunch to check on him. I was puzzled to see a Rubbermaid trash can upside down in the middle of the kitchen floor. Thought IÂd take care of it after talking to DH upstairs (glad I did that!), DH told me that there was this big green thing  sort of like a lizard, sort of like snake, that was in the kitchen and he had put a trash can on top of it to keep it in place (He swears to this date that it was because he didnÂt have the energy to drive it outside, and of course I agree). So, we moved the trashcan like that without lifting it (luckily there was no raised threshold between the rooms) from the kitchen through the dining room to the foyer. The front entrance had a raised threshold and we decided to lift the trashcan in one corner so whatever was inside could jump/go outside through the open door. As a backup plan, I had a broom and a spray bottle with water.
Our imaginations ran wild and we came up with all possible things that could go wrong  donÂt even remember half of those since it has been 11 years! Anyway, we lifted the trashcan a little; he came out and looked at both of us as if we were weird! I didnÂt want to use the broom, what he jumped on the broom and on to me! (After reading the squirrel story, I believe now that my fears were not that unfounded) After a few minutes of me doing all sorts of things, he got bored of me and moved to the threshold, turned around to look at us, I started to spray some water trying to scare him, but he just opened his mouth and drank (poor guy might have been thirsty!) Since it was getting late for work, I decided to close the door and leave through the side entrance leaving him to guard our front! Sure enough, I was able to give my undivided attention at work (didnÂt even think for a minute about the intruder, what to do if he was still on the threshold, alternate plans etc.) Luckily he was gone when I went home that evening. That was not the time of Digital cameras and GW to get the guy identified; so it took a few days for us to id him as the famous ÂCarolina AnoleÂ, and one that is very common in SC!

I've never entered a contest like this before,but here goes the story. i just moved into this house 2 years ago. most of the house i know, but not every inch of a large 4 part shed that is mainly for storage and taking up space in my yard. apparently i have a secret tunnel that runs somehow under the shed that neighbors extra, extra large black cat likes to explore. i have been in my yard for hours on end and never see when the cat goes into the shed ( a cat that size would be very hard to miss), but i see it when it comes slinking out. i just usually throw something at it and it takes off. well one afternoon i come home and take the dog outside. my dog is a 7lb chihuahua who usually tries to act like a pitbull. so i take her out and she immediately runs to the outer edge of the shed and starts barking and growling and snarling like she's about to do some serious damage. the neighbor's cat comes bounding out and pauses for a second in front of my dog. the two of them look at each other as if to say " Aaaawwwwwwgggggghhh!!!!" and the insanely large cat goes running back towards its home and my big ego little dog comes flying top speed like a horse to the house. its a good thing the sliding door was still open cause i think she would have broken it in what i now call 'The Great Escape'.

Hey Jase,
Aren't we supposed to start voting on this thread today?

Well,...My vote goes to Flowergirl 1211

Dawn

Hey guys let's here what you think. It's time to vote!!

These folks have entertained us for a couple of days. Let's pick a winner so I can send him or her their prize tomorrow! We have until midnight tonight to put in a word for our favorites. Please vote only once.

Thanks so much for participating,
Jase

My vote goes to kms4me. (It was hard to decide, though. -What funny stories!)

There are 3 I keep going back and forth on - but since I must cast a vote, I vote for -

kms4me

I'm voting for cattjovi, but all the stories were great! Thanks for sharing them.

I'm voting for cattjovi, too. Loved the tales!

I laughed at them all until my sides hurt, but I have to vote for:

kms4me

I loved both Cattjovi's and Kms4me's stories, but I pick Kms4me as the best only because it happened in the garden. : )
Remy

My vote goes to ilovefarac's tale. Kids can be sooo funny.

So many really great stories, it is really hard to decide. I could especially envision rosepedal's grandma with her double barreled sling shot stuck to the back of her sweater.

She gets my vote.

Sue

Looks like kms4me is the winner with four votes! Congratulations Kate! I have to agree your story was hilarious. Though I can't imagine it was all that funny at the time. If you will email me your mailing address to plantaholics@bellsouth.net I will get the seeds you won into tomorrow's mail.

Thanks to everyone for participating. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.

Best wishes,
Jase

Thanks Jase, for hosting this. It was fun participating and I enjoyed reading everyone elses stories. It's great to be able to see the funny side in critters.

Thanks for everyone who voted,

Kms4me
Kate

I have to agree Kate it was funny, all of them were, I had a really great time laughing and reading all of the wonderful stories, what a great idea, thanks, Lisa

I am glad I entered this, because I would be so torn between a few stories,between the squirrels attacking people and stealing treats,men covering lizards with buckets and women running crazy at a deer with pitchforks....lol....I could have never made a decision,I liked them all! :)I hope someone else picks this up and does it again,if not I might just have to snoop through my stash and see what I can come up with for a prize,thanks Jase! :)

My husband is a deer hunter. I'd been having a problem with a deer in my garden (Not eating anything but just running through it) I bet you think you know where this is going.. Well, your wrong. That winter my husband could not go out hunting and there were only 2 days left of deer hunting. We received a call that morning from one of our friends he's gotten a deer - a small doe - He wanted that 14 point buck! My husband told him he'd give him his deer tag in exchange for the little doe (we didn't have that much room in the freezer anyway and he didn't care for deer tag stew. Jerry brought the deer over it was about 15 degrees outside and ask me where I wanted it. "Just hang it up outside on the back porch" I said. Forgetting the pest control guy was coming. When the pest control guy arrived he looked at me smiled real big and ask who got the baby deer? I looked at him and answered "I did that darn thing kept getting in my garden so I chased her down and slit her throat." I didn't think anything else about it until I went down to get gas in the truck. When I walked into the quick mart everyone stopped and looked at me.. One brave soul ask if I really chased down that deer!
Thanks for letting me share I still smile tkinking about my white lie!! dbarjgarden..

Well its like this, I hybridize daylilys, but have a very small yard, but I have this friend of about 30 years that bought a house "right around the corner". He has 3 or 4 acres, well I got him interested in Daylilys, and soon I had a couple of beds over there in the front yard which is as big as my back yard. Well we used up all that space between my plants, and his plants and a bunch of Irises, so we went out back and put in a couple more beds. All was well for quite awhile, but my friend starts work early so I would go over there every morning after I pollinated here and continue my work there. He would often leave me a list of crosses he would like done and I would do them for him. We had a realy nice arrangement until his neighbors moved. The old neighbors used to just shake their heads at us plant nuts and not pay us much attnetion. Well a nice young couple purchased the home, and weren't really used to the way things are. Well I had been going over there for about a week armed with pollen, string tags, pen, pencil, clipboard and pollen but no one noticed me. Well one day about 11:00 I went over, and pollinated some flowers in the front yard, and had just moved to the back yard. Now it was about 85 degrees, I was wearing cut off jeans, and a pocket t shirt, no shoes, I have pollen all over me and I'm sweating to beat the band when I hear, "put your hands up, and lay down on the ground". Well I was more than surprised, but I managed to comply. The next thing I knew I was cuffed, searched, and asked just exactly what and the hell I was doing. Now the city I live in is small, and I know 75% of the police force by name, but not these two. I had left my wallet at home, so I had no ID. It took me almost 15 minutes to explain what I was doing while I was answering their questions along the way, fortuntely a Sargent showed up. I was instantly relieved, he took one look at me and told them to take the cuffs off, laughing the whole time. After the other two settled down he looks at me and says, "OK John I know this is going to be good what is going on", he never stopped laughing..... I met the new neighbors that evening.

Actually, I am trying to reach you in regards to a trade but am not sure mail is being delivered.