In the Garden

 Succulents doing well...

 Blueberry bushes making flowers...

 And...some creature wreaking havoc in my raised beds, which fortunately are not really fully planted this time of year. I think it might be skunks digging for grubs...

The whole point of these beds--bottoms are lined with gopher wire--was to be able to plant and not have gophers decimate everything. So it's not gophers...whatever it is needs to knock it off!

Umm...

Who knew gophers were so into symmetry...I feel like this might be some sort of Earth Art attempt by our rodential "friends." Thankfully, this is NOT our yard!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good: A gorgeous fiery sunset.

The Bad: I've had to turn on the stupid word verification thingy that we all hate--too many spam comments (and WTH is up with them? What good does it do the spammer?). It used to be that Blogger would move them right into the spam folder, but recently they seem to be published, so back to weird letter combinations and blurry house numbers it is. Boo!

The Ugly: another rose bush demolished by gophers. It was the bush that produced these beauties.

You can actually see giant gophery teeth marks on the erstwhile root ball in the second photo. ARGH!!!!!!! I will NOT let them defeat me!

A Tisket, A Tasket, Where's My Gopher Basket?

Oh yeah, gophers...it's ON!

Gophers 2, Foziewisp 0

Another rosebush bites the dust, having been bitten (and chewed and gnawed and eaten) by the Walking Gophers. Maybe they are zombie gophers?

*&#@*$'ing Gophers!

 Sorry to fake swear, but behold what the gophers have wrought. This was a rosebush. They have gnawed it off at the roots and killed it dead.

Look closely at this pic: you can actually see the marks of their gopher teeth--it looks as if someone has planed this wood with a tool.

Oh yeah, gophers, IT'S ON!!!! (P.S. I'm not going to kill them, despite their destructiveness. We will win, however, because we have opposable thumbs and the Internet (perhaps no match against their giant gopher teeth...).

Next up: this.

Gopher Gobbled

Remember my remarkable artichoke plant, as seen here? That is its corpse above.
Hmm, I wonder what could have happened? Note the bite mark at the bottom of the stalk--and really, you had to chomp it and then leave it behind? And not one stalk but ten or so? It's like the person who raids the box of See's candy, bites into various pieces, and then puts them back (the marshmallow and nougat ones).
The tell-tale mound...
...of this little bugger. Mr./Ms. gopher: you are so cute, and sooooo destructive. Not a great photo of him/her, but he/she kept popping its head up and then ducking back down--and I was all the way in the house!

Alas, poor artichoke, ye are no more.

Garden WTFs, Times Two

Exhibit A: my most productive rosebush with the most fragrant flowers, as seen above...
...now looks like this. Overnight. I wonder why?
Gophers!!!! The little mofos ate all of the roots away. Damn it!
Exhibit B: remember yesterday's post about my nutty artichoke plant? Well, it is still green, still thriving, still producing, but...
...this is what it looks like from the side. It's fallen over (and obviously it can't get up!). Weird...maybe the weight of the artichokes made it fall over (although they didn't cause it to do that last year). Oh well! As long as the gophers don't destroy it...

January Showers (Deluges) Bring...

It's so chilly and stormy here--which is fine since it's winter, after all--but I like to look at photos of flowering loveliness to remind myself that after the mud/gophers/weeds/etc., come these (LOTS of these: it's nigella, or love-in-a-mist, which is a prodigious self-sower).

Operation Fox Urine has begun--let's hope the gophers aren't very clever and are fooled by the smell (which is rather nasty, by the way); we spread a lot of it, so maybe the gophers will think a small herd/skulk/troop/lead (don't you love all the wacky collective nouns for groups of animas?) of foxes has taken up residence. As for the weeds . . . sigh.

They're Baaack . . .

The gophers, that is. Here's some handiwork in the front "yard" (currently, and seemingly endlessly, awaiting its redesign). We watched one of them repeatedly stick his little head out, nervously, waiting for us to leave. It was kinda like this . . .

Sigh. So now we've resorted to--wait for it--buying urine online. Yes, you read that right: fox urine. (What an age we live in where that's possible!) The theory is that the gophers will smell the predator and hightail it away. I was told by someone in the neighborhood that coyote urine worked, but apparently you have to fine-tune your urine purchasing and get the right one! B. offered to donate to the cause, but I declined. For many reasons. Not the least of which is the little Caddyshack dance we watched the other day. Mr. Gopher was twitchy, but I don't believe he sees us as predators. Gopher Watch 2007 continues . . .