The Wee Beasties: Not so Funny

Who can forget the classic movie “Caddyshack” and Bill Murray’s ongoing battle with the varmints! It was hilarious in the movie but when it’s your yard being attacked, they don’t seem nearly as cute and cuddly. What can you do?  Well, you could always try to hire Bill Murray to blow up your yard or bring in a Gopher snake or Barn Owl to eat the rascals...or you can take a more sensible and less dramatic approach…install a gopher deterrent fence.  

Sure it’s a lot of work, but if protecting your land, lawn, trees, shrubs, and garden is important to you, then it’s worth it! Even one gopher can cause tremendous and costly damage. In most cases, it is only one gopher terrorizing your property since they are extremely territorial and solitary animals. It just looks like there must be a whole “herd” of them from all the holes and damage.

Fight Gophers as well as Rust and Corrosion

The first step is choosing the right type of fence to use since it will have to withstand the rigors of being buried. Choosing the wrong type of fence can be a costly and very frustrating mistake. Chicken/poultry wire or aviary fence is not intended to be buried and will fail in a short period of time. Galvanized After Weld, Vinyl Coated, and Stainless Steel wire provide protection from rust and corrosion and will last for many years. Obviously, these are not the favorite choices of gophers. In terms of mesh size, ½” x ½” is ideal because the openings are small and stiff enough to prevent gophers from gaining access to the surface.

For protecting lawns and garden areas, the fence should be buried 2 to 6 inches deep, covered with soil, and the sod or plants installed on top of the soil. The wire should be secured using sod staples or “U” pins placed two to three feet apart. Be careful to have tight overlaps of 4-6 inches without buckling or openings. After the gopher bumps his head a few times, he will move on to greener pastures! For above-ground use, these meshes can easily be made into baskets to protect individual plantings.

A Perimeter Fence

Another option to help keep the gophers out is the installation of perimeter fencing. The fence should have small openings and the bottom of the fence should be buried 2 to 3 feet deep with at least 6 to 12 inches above the ground to prevent gophers from burrowing underneath or invading from the surface. The buried portion of the wire should have a ninety-degree bend to the outside.

In Conclusion

For additional weapons in the war against gophers, try putting a pine-scented cleaner or chili powder in the burrows. Gophers hate this!

Don’t let gophers defeat you. Take back control of your lawn and garden so you can spend time playing golf or whatever it is that you enjoy.

And, be sure to say hello to Bill for me!

A Skunk Under My Shed 

The Fluffy Shadow 

I have to think twice before taking the garbage out at night or going to find something in the shed after dark. When I go from car to house or house to car after dark, I move quickly with eyes scanning the ground for a fluffy shadow or set of eyes twinkling in the moonlight. My dwelling is terrorized by a skunk that wages a putrid form of guerrilla warfare against my household. It has made its home under our shed and I am loath to engage it in battle. It has to go. We can’t stand the thought of more summer evenings spoiled by the threat of an altercation with these hostiles. The question is: how does one get rid of a skunk?

Methods for Extraction

Modern life offers a lot of very easy solutions to problems that confounded earlier generations. Unfortunately, there is no “easy button” for skunk removal. Unless I am willing to damage the shed (what I’m calling the tip and run method), the animal (poison), or both (flooding/burning) I don’t know how to avoid the physical act of removing the animal. There are some tips on how to get rid of them, but the ones that don’t risk an encounter with the skunk, seem not to work. For example, I read that putting a dirty sock by their entrance would make them move their home. This is untrue. I put a post-basketball sock out there and if this sock wasn’t dirty enough, we might be better off with the skunks than a dirtier sock. I waited a few days hoping that the skunk's repeated encounters with the sock would send it packing, but alas, the skunk remains.

Chatting with a Professional

As may already be apparent from this post, I have an intense fear of being sprayed by a skunk. Generally, I like do-it-yourself projects, but I think for the removal phase of this project I will have to turn to a professional. I spoke to a Louis Page customer, Erik from Needham/Woburn Pest Control, about how to keep the critters out from under the shed once they are extracted. He recommended the following labor-intense, yet straightforward solution.         

1. Dig a trench around the shed 12” deep and 12”-18” wide extending away from the base of the shed.
2. Using ½" x ½" welded wire mesh, 36” wide, staple the top edge to the base of the shed with galvanized staples.
3. Lay the remaining 30 or so inches into the trench to cover 12” inches down and 18” out.
4. Backfill the trench and voilà! Skunk proof!

Since the mesh will be underground, I’ll need to be sure that it is resistant to rust and corrosion. Galvanized after weld offers good protection, but black vinyl coated mesh would be even better and the small amount of exposed wire mesh around the base of the shed will look much better over time if it does not rust. Also, the black color will be virtually invisible. This is really not something I want to do twice.

That’s the plan I think. Onward and upward. And certainly, your ideas are always appreciated!