Pondering the cosmos

cosmos
Originally uploaded by norvegal

I was wandering around the garden this morning, checking to see if I'd caught the woodchuck that's been wreaking havoc on my vegetables. I always feel bad about relocating an animal from its chosen habitat. Just because I'm bigger and have opposable thumbs and know how to fix a leaky toilet, who am I to dictate where another living creature should live? That's just not right.

But all noble thoughts end the moment there's an incursion into the garden. Which happened this week. First it was the kale - tender, perfect, beautiful little leaves of kale that were planted from seed and finally ripe. I planned to harvest them for dinner the next night, but when I woke up? Poof. Gone. But the worst part was when it got the tomatoes. It didn't just pluck a few and discretely take them away, no, it sloppily bit into them right on the vine, leaving a perfectly ripe and beautiful but slobber-covered uneaten half right there. As if a frat boy had been using my garden as its kitchen.

So, out came the Havahart trap. I first baited it with cabbage, but no dice. So I went to the grocery store and got Mr. Woodchuck an especially plump head of broccoli. Did he take the bait? Nope.

Fall produce aside, the garden is getting ready for its long winter nap. But this morning I came upon this cluster of cosmos, so perky and happy, finally entering is prime (cosmos is, after all, part of the aster family). Lucky for me, it appears that woodchucks don't like cosmos. At least not yet.