Between weather, animals, insects, fungus, bacteria, and even viruses, it sometimes seems like all out war trying to raise fruit. There is an old adage about nature getting a third (or is it two thirds) of your crop, but when there is nothing left, its them or you. Get Victor rat traps (same company as Hav-a-Hart) but make sure that you place them where neighborhood pets cannot get injured or killed. I twist-tie peanut half-shells to the trigger, fill the shell halves with peanut butter and embed an assortment of raisins, dried cranberries, dates, and peanuts into the peanut butter. I set three of them in my blueberry cages where smaller animals were tunneling in or squeezing through the chicken wire, and killed chipmunks, mice, and moles as fast as I could reset the traps, which was three times a day. I had one go off as I was walking back into the house from resetting them. After three days, the traps remained empty for weeks. Do not buy Tomcat brand traps. They have a different trigger that is so tight, I would often find the peanut shells licked clean, still twist-tied to the trigger, and the trap still set like I had been visited by Speedy Gonzales How useless is that? Without the fencing to protect pets, I set them on top of trellis posts and cross arms, where cats and dogs cannot reach them. I get an occasional cat bird or cow bird up there, taking a break from stealing me blind of raspberries and blackberries, but mostly chipmunks and squirrels. If your state and local regulations and neighborhood configuration allow, a Gamo Whisper pellet rifle will take care of squirrels. They come in .177 and .22 caliber and have the muzzle velocity of a .22 rimfire cartridge rifle. The Whisper model has a silencer that takes away a little of the noise, but with the right pellets breaking the sound barrier, (up to 1,200 feet per second) you still get a "crack" as the pellet travels down-range. With the scope that comes with it dialed in (not an easy feat), I can repeatedly hit one of those green metal garden fence posts at fifty yards, making squirrels an easy target if they are standing still. I'm not a hunter or a cruel person by nature, but there is something to be said for the satisfaction of waking up in the morning to find squirrels jumping around your peach trees like they were on a jungle gym, blowing one out of a tree at 50 yards and watching the rest scatter. A more humane approach is to string up old CDs with fishing line or string so that they spin in the breeze. The flashing movement seems to help a little. I bought "Bird Scare Tape" that was supposed to do the same thing and ironically found that the sparrows had stolen it to build their nests in the eaves of my house.

Sounds like it's time to make deer jerky!! If you have any pods left try putting pieces of a strong scented soap like irish spring in the beds around the remainder. The scent is suppossed to make deer avoid the area. It will not work for long, (They soon get used to it)but it's a relatively cheap thing to try. I've also heard putting human hair clippings from the barber shop sometimes deter them. Vary your "deer proofing" strategies often as they soon get used to the smells when they no longer percieve them as dangerous & to be avoided. Also if you have a dog walking your dog near the ones you want protected most may lay down enough of his scent to get them to avoid that area for a little while too. Nothing short of a high fence/shotgun will be a permanent fix. Good luck Kim

Hey faltered, THose morning glories are hanging tough as nails! They are in the ground. I ws'd them in paper pots and to tell you the truth I transplanted them a day or two after the seeds germinated during that warm spring week that we had because they were going to go on a lattice screen behind my sunflowers. I put the milk jug tops on them at night for a few days after I planted them out and have done nothing since then and they have been doing well...not really growing any but very green and robust. It could be that the paper pots (bottomless) have provided them with some additinal root insulation and that is what has kept them healthy. Each morning I go look at them with disbelief that they have survived another cold night. The other morning it was 33 degrees and I just new they were total gonners but they were just fine. I had also planted out my pineapple sage and so far it is doing well too as is all my red chianti sunflowers. On another note, I was out in the back yard yesterdy in the cold pouring rain digging up hunk of seedlings of jewelweed for people. Mine went crazy this year (with the help of the kids playing with the ripe seed pods so they would explode) and I have a sea of green in my back bed. I posted on freecycle that I had seedlings if anyone wanted them and so far have had about 2 dozen replies. So as people come I dig up the hunks for them. Most of them don't have a clue what it is and when they reply and request some I try to tell them all about it so they know what they are planting. A few that are hummingbird gardeners know exactly so I know those hunks will be going to a good home LOL! One person said I will take one seedling. I had to email her back right away and tell her that she can't have just one, she has to take a whole hunk and then I sat down and explained all about it. So in spite of the lousy weather I was still out there digging in the dirt (I mean mud) and it was miserable! I have told the rest of the people to call me mid week when the rain stops as I am not digging anything else up in this cold rain. Penny

Forgive me, but you don't sound very spiritual, Spiritual_ Gardner. I realized when I posted that I was in danger of having my wrists slapped, but it was a risk I was willing to take because over the years I've received so much useful information from the people who frequent this site and because I figured if anyone could understand someone desperately willing to go the extra mile for her dogs, even if it's a long and unpleasant mile, it would be the folks on this forum. I can't argue with anything you said, but I can object to the fact that you said it with all the confidence of someone who knows absolutely nothing about the background. Why is it that some people (a blessed few) feel so free to chastise without considering that we are all different, and just maybe if they found themselves in another's exact same situation they would deal with it in the exact same way? In the case of Wolfy and his poor training, he was adopted as an (untrained) adult dog by my daughter Gillian. She worked with him, but he was tough, and at some point she was no longer well enough to be consistent about it. She died seven years ago (today is the anniversary, as a matter of fact), and I took over Wolfy's care. At the time, my husband (a Yale Ph.D. chemist) had severe dementia, and it was another four years before he died. So suffice it to say that I didn't have a lot of interest in or energy for dog training for quite a long time. Like most of us, I'm doing the best I can with what I have. And like most of us, I can do it better when I'm not getting criticized.