Yes you are blessed. bye the way, what is rabbit fencing. what are the size of the holes. I know chicken wire is usually one inch holes. and rabbit hutches use like 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch wire mesh. but wire mesh is expensive for fencing. I have to be honest I have not seen new evidence of the groundhog these past couple of days. But with holes in the yard they can not be far off. I did see at least 2 different ones in the garden previous. a big one and a little one. so they are around. just not chomping hard on the garden. to annie on the salt. I would think it better to bind up the salt into a brick or solid. Now farm stores sell salt blocks. getting some bacon fat and adding salt would bind it into a fat blob and at least hold the salt together. or soaking into a sponge. Kosher salt would have a few big chunks and you might filter out a few big chunks. a tiny moisture might help them bind together. but I would not just pour small granule table salt down a hole. it seems to me it will disappate some. besides you really dont want to add salt to your soil. salt is not good for ground water. If you have a chunk of salt and it does not get eaten then you can remove the salt from your soil. Some years ago I seem to remember reading that a woodchuck can have several dens and he will visit them in order as he goes around the territory. so maybe he is out on visit but will be back to check when the good stuff is ready in my garden. Also next year I have to start trapping earlier when there is little food available. Today I harvested some nice broccoli for me. nice tender side shoots. the head I took a week or so ago. I like this Thompson Broccoli from Fedco seeds. it is going to be one of my favorite veggies.

Your unknowns are all so pretty. I especially like the last one. So cute! I wish I could help you with the names. My favorite of the bunch is Mephistopheles. And your picture of Night Embers is great. Michelle

In my state, 25% of bats carry the rabies virus. That's not good odds, when you wake up with a bat in your bedroom. There have been enough cases of rabies from bats where they could not figure out if the victim was bitten or just touched the saliva or something else. If rabies wasn't fatal once the symptoms start showing, it would be a different story. But the only way to prevent dying from rabies if you have been infected is to get the shots soon enough. Last week, we found a bat in the kitchen sink one morning. Because we sleep with the bedroom doors open, the bat could have been flying in our rooms as we slept. Therefore, it needed to be tested for rabies. A call to the state department of Public Health brought a Fish and Game official to our door less than two hours later. We had the results of the rabies test four hours after that. (It was negative. However the bat was infected with white nose disease, which is killing off a lot of bats in our area.) At no point did anyone from the state suggest that we were fear-mongering or making a mountain out of a molehill. Everyone was polite, concerned and determined to act fast. They took the bat seriously. So did I. There's no need to panic if you find a bat in your house. But there is a need to take it seriously and get it checked for rabies if anyone was asleep in any of the rooms it was in.

I am terrified of mice, and live alone with two small dogs. I first noticed mouse droppings a few weeks ago in my canned goods cabinet. They had chewed through a bag of mint chocolate candy, and eaten the entire 24 ounce bag, of candies that were individually wrapped. I freaked out since they don't like peppermint. So, I got a beeper thing to repel them; it didn't work. I got the sticky traps, and a mouse chewed through the center and freed himself. I then got the old fashioned snappers, and while it caught one mouse, another was caught, and chewed its leg off to escape. I'm so grossed out. So, I called an exterminater, and almost a month later, I have not seen a decrease in droppings. I basically eat all meals out so that there is no food in the kitchen. What's there is in glass or metal jars, or canned goods. The counter tops are disinfected twice a day, and since they don't have crumbs, not sure why I still have the terrifying things. I put the dogs' water in a rabbit bottle so that it is off the ground, and they get fed twice a day, then the food is picked up. Their food is in a trashcan with a sealing lid. I've tried Bounce sheets, steel wool in holes, peppermint oil cotton balls, etc, with no luck. I've left puffs of my hair, dog hair, and a friend's cat hair on counters, with no luck as well. Any other ideas? I can't stand looking or thinking about the things, and need them gone as soon as possible. Thanks!