So, we’ve spent the last few days in a battle with groundhogs. Sunday morning we noticed something had gotten into our garden and ate the tops off the carrots, leaves off most of the green beans, and a good chunk of our lettuce, spinach, and kale crops.

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Later that evening during dinner, Vinny told Clinton and Tarin he noticed something through the window in the garden. Sure enough it was a groundhog! Clint chased it out the garden and discovered it CHEWED a hole in our fencing (cheap-ass chicken wire!).

Clint ran to the store to get reinforcements and I debated if I wanted to pull out my riffle for some target practice.

When Clint got back, I showed him an old trap I found from the previous owners and we loaded it up with all the groundhog’s favorite things then set it outside the garden by the hole it made. Inside the garden we situated the owl.

Then we waited.

The next morning it didn’t appear that the groundhog returned. The trap was untouched and the garden appeared to have no further damage.

The waiting game continued… until Sr. took Jack outside:

This. Was. War.

Sr. added celery to the trap and reset it inside the garden covered with hay. A few hours later Jr. came screaming inside with news that we caught the villain!

As we all gathered outside, the kids were the first to fall prey to the evil groundhog’s cute exterior.

Clint offered to remove the animal to a local park but Tarin’s dad was unsure this was legal and offered a more permanent solution.

Sr. was put in charge of “handling it” after the kids all went inside, which turned out to be much more difficult. Apparently our garden vegetables made it temporarily invincible and it knew it as it but the end of the barrel and tried to eat it way through the side of the trap.

Ultimately it was done and our crops were safe…

Or so we thought….

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