I live on a farm in VA and have finally had to give in and allow someone to come shoot these guys. I quite love them, and have huge respect for the grand daddy, who has lived at this farm longer than I have, surviving total bulldozing of the old garden, complete rebuilding of the old farm house (under which he also used to live) and my 2 Border Collies. Besides, they remind me of my beloved Lhasa Apso who has passed away. HOWEVER, I've been living here for 10 years and starting 2 years ago, the GH (who has since created quite an impressive giant condo complex under a pile of old wood from the old razed barn) finally started annihilating my garden. Despite what some people here have posted I can tell you, they are quite smart & have a keen sense of hearing. GHs live in burrows underground (like a cave). It always has more than one entrance/exit. They generally come out early in the morning and at sunset. I have an entire wire cattle fence, along with electric hot wire all along the entire bottom perimeter of my fence to keep my dogs in (who like to constantly dig under and run away whenever they hear thunder, gun shots or just feel like it!). This hot wire is set for the highest level of shock, and will keep a horse or bull away! This is only 1 foot away from the GH woodpile den. My garden is inside this fence and then inside yet another fence, which is also hot wired at the ground level. Yet, the GHs know full well how to go around the fence, burrow under the fence, whatever. All I know is they have started again eating every tomato I have that starts to ripen and will absolutely take every melon we are growing. And they could care less about my Border Collies who know the word "Ground Hog" and will dive and dig at the hole if you say that to them. The GH just goes somewhere in his condo complex and doesn't give a hoot. I should say though that my 2 dogs are 2 goofy lovebugs and routinely take their balls & toys to the cows and any other critter in hopes they will play, and would never hurt any little critter intentionally (unlike most farm dogs.) If they did encounter the GH, they'd probably offer him a tomato. After years of only seeing the old grand daddy GH, last week I saw him showing the ropes to a little one. Last night my farm tenant came over with a high powered rifle and shot the old guy, but also said he saw another giant one (probably the mom) and a smaller one. There is likely a huge family under there. It made me feel guilty and wistfully sad, but at the end of the day, not only would I be fighting a losing battle of the garden, wild animals carry disease, fleas, ticks with Lyme, if cornered they have huge claws & fangs, and the holes they dig can cause someone (or my dogs or cows) to break their leg. If you are going to try a humane trap (which I did), they are extremely smart and you will have a long wait and will have to create the trap to mimic a hollow den or they are not dumb enough to go into a metal contraption - LOL! I agree with the hunters posting above that if you are going to shoot at it, get someone who knows what they are doing and will kill the animal humanely and put him out cleanly. Shooting at him with a BB gun is cruel, as it will not kill him, just cause wounds, suffering and illness. Hope this helps! Now I'm also on the case of the bunnies, voles and whatever is now eating all my blackberries! ARGH! LOL!!!!

Jenn- I can relate. I'm in the middle of a huge re-do as well. I live in upper Rockridge in Oakland, and am having the yard re-terraced for improved access. In my case, they've been working for two months and I think they're only half done. I let them decide when they think they can safely work on the hillside. Where they have compacted the soil in places I want to plant I will have them amend it. In my case, they are building me lots of paths and steps, so I figure all they are doing is compacting the places that need compacting. I'm trying to plant the areas they've completed-at least get some of the deciduous trees in place. I went out there yesterday afternoon, right after the rain stopped, and my soil was dripping wet a foot down. BUT-since my soil has years of Clodbreaker worked in and lots of mulch faithfully applied, it didn't compact when I dug it. At one point when they dug into my hillside to widen a terrace, I was amazed to see that I had beautiful dirt 2 feet down. I've been mulching the soil for 12 years w/ American Soil's 1/4 inch fir bark, and when the back yard was originally terraced, I had them add in lots of Clodbreaker. That soil was a thing of beauty, unlike the nasty sticky stuff that was uncovered when they pulled out a hillside of ceanothus in untouched soil. So.. you can improve clay soil if you keep at it.

Just finished prunning and cleaning up that front yard section. I just can't believe how much sun there is there now. Anyway, the older bigger roses in the front bed, which were put in 2007 had no damage worth mentioning. Did need some hard prunning to get rid of broken limbs here and there but as soon as they leaf out and start growing that will be unnoticeable. The newer bed section that had Heirloom roses from last year and the year before took the worst of it. Nearest the tree trunk so most flattened. I had to dig and loosen soil around the roots on some of the rose shrubs and pull them back upright as they had ben pushed down. Broken limbs so they got harshly prunned. Then the really little ones from last year are in truely bad shape. Two of them are just not there at all, must have gotten dug up and lost with all the trampling and root digging. I will just replace those as if I need an excuse to buy more roses from Heirloom. The rest of the babies in that section got beat up badly but own root roses come back so they should be fine after awhile, even if extra small. I was also out there on my hands and knees with a cutivator and trowel digging and brushing dirt off the buried Siberian Iris. I was happy to find many of them. So while most are still there some of a partial row is totally gone. That would be were they dug to get to the tree roots that went straight down so that they could have accress to cut that root with the chain saw and lift out what was left of the stump. So now I am going to have top find my lists and see whats missing from that area so I can replace them.

Only the very lightest of sprinkles so far today, and they didn't last long at all. It is thundering outside, though, so I am hoping that means rain is imminent. I did water the volunteer pumpkins that sprouted outside the guinea/hen house and pen and have been climbing the fence that encloses the pen. Because the pen is built like a hoophouse with a 10' tall 'roof' made of poulty fencing/bird netting, we have 2 pumpkins growing up there 10' above the ground, so it will be interesting to see how they do up there. I need to run outside and pick some tomatoes while it is nice and cool, and not yet raining. I also need to mow, but think I will probably have to do that tomorrow since I think we are about to get rain. I did get my 2007-2008 HPS catalog and, of course, there are the seeds of many old favorites in it, and a lot of new ones that are making me drool, including Petunia 'Baby Duck Yellow', Nasturtium 'Caribbean Crush'(seems to be a sister to 'Caribbean Cocktail' and has more yellow in its swirled colors) Zinnia 'Aztec Sunset' (2007 Fleuroselect Gold Medal Winer), and California Poppy 'Raspberry Fool', among others. So, while it rains and rains this weekend (I hope), I probably will go through the catalog and make a huge 'wish list' and then go back and edit and re-edit it over and over again until it is a reasonable length and also an affordable one. Because HPS is always the first catalog to arrive for NEXT season, I wear it out. By ordering early from it, I am then ready to start some biennials in late autumn, to winter sow some seeds, and even to start some things inside under lights in December. Then, when the other catalogs come in December, I can look for other new treasures and don't feel like I need to 'hurry up' and order, 'cause I already have some seeds started. The butterflies are thick here today. I guess they are enjoying the cooler air and the cloudy weather. We've enjoyed the August sunshine, but appreciate a break from it too. We've been seeing more bluebirds lately, so they must have had a good year as far as successfully hatching and rearing their young. Our bluebird population is really eratic. Grasshoppers and crickets are everywhere, and we are seeing more and more sphinx moths out nectaring in the late evening and early morning hours. The flowers that are blooming are doing great, but only because they're being watered a lot to help them through the heat. Hank, The caterpillar was probably a tomato fruitworm. I've been seeing some of them, although mostly I have hornworms. Courtney, Hummers can be quite agressive. We have one that likes to sit on the telephone wire and watch the two hummingbird feeders so he can chase away anyone who tries to go to either one of them. (One is in front of the house, the other is in back.) He's a greedy and territorial little guy! I hope you get more rain to water in that nitrogen. Dawn