Ground Hog Update

I love living in a neighborhood with trees and green spaces nearby.

We have a lot of animal neighbors - ducks, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, and rabbits pass through our yard. I'm okay with that. Usually, we get along well - as long as they leave the garden alone!

Ground hogs have lived in a neighboring field for as long as I can remember...

But early this past spring, we noticed that they had moved into our yard!! I read online that they eat a third of their weight in vegetation every day...

That, for me, was the final straw in a month that brought a lot of sad changes due to the Coronavirus pandemic! I was very upset...To make matters worse, when I went online to see how to motivate them to move, at least one person commented that they were hard to get rid of...

I don't remember which website was the most useful to me. It might have been this one: dengarden.com with its 12 ways to get rid of groundhogs for good.

Reading the online articles, I found the readers' comments just as helpful as the advice in the article. I read that ground hogs dislike talcum powder, Epsom salts and ammonia, and are deterred by human hair left lying around the opening to their nests.

We happened to have all the above. We tried it all - not very optimistically, I must admit. I also threw around a few pieces of bubble gum that are said to mess with their digestive system... And I prayed!!!

Update:...To our amazement, they seem to have moved from under our front shed, where they had a nest of young. Now all that's left is to permanently seal up their openings - in case they come around looking for a nest again. Hopefully that will be the end of them.

Two kinds of gum were suggested: Double bubble and Juicy Fruit. I think the squirrels may have taken the bubble gum and buried it... And the ground hogs left before I even put out the Juicy Fruit. Now I can enjoy it myself!