{"id":2307,"date":"2007-11-03T16:05:14","date_gmt":"2007-11-03T22:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2017-07-19T19:18:26","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T00:18:26","slug":"rascally-raccoons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/garden-critters\/rascally-raccoons\/","title":{"rendered":"Rascally Raccoons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If my neighbors were up at 5 this morning they might have wondered what I was doing bellowing sky-clad in my back yard while brandishing a broom. No, I&#8217;m not a practitioner of the craft. Nor was I cavorting with demons (hmmm, let me think on that). I had awakened from a strange dream, looked out my window, and saw two raccoons rolling on the lawn. For the last week something has been getting into the pond. I figured it was raccoons and here was conclusive proof. So out of the house I sprang to chase them off.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately they ran straight for the pond, jumped in, and hid under the deck. I stood still and they came out, not the least bit afraid of me. I treed one and threw a stick at the other one which ran off.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve long expected them to go after the gold fish but they&#8217;ve also shredded all the oxygenating plants and knocked over the plants in pots and dragged them under the deck. Not only have they been ravaging my pond they&#8217;ve been grubbing in the paths and lawns. Last night they decided all the freshly dug beds were irresistible.<\/p>\n<p>The raccoons also dug up the bearded irises that I finally got around to replanting this week.<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/raccoon1.jpg\" alt=\"raccoon damage\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And tore up the aloe vera in the front bed.<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/raccoon2.jpg\" alt=\"raccoon damage\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And dug up all my newly seeded beds, including this bunch of swiss chard that was just starting to take hold.<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/raccoon3.jpg\" alt=\"raccoon damage\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Amazingly, I saw four fish still alive in the pond today. So we put some barricades around the perimeter. It looks more like the trenches in a war zone than a garden pond. If camo can be a fashionable fabric, will barbed wire catch on in the garden?<\/p>\n<p>Has anyone been successful deterring raccoons? If so, how? I see that there are all sorts of products out there but what really works?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/raccoon4.jpg\" alt=\"raccoon footprints\" \/><br \/><i>In June, when the pond filled with rainwater, I noticed the raccoons (or possibly possums) were checking it out. I didn&#8217;t buy any fish for a long time. When I did I started very small&#8211;ten 12-cent goldfish.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5521,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions\/5521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}