Not Chuck, but out of luck...

In the five years that we have lived in this house we have had a mascot... a big, fat, lazy, furry mascot. He lives under our deck, he is a woodchuck, his name is Chuck. For the first couple years he was a novelty. We would see him sunning himself on the deck on warm spring days, and then he would scurry to the neighbors yard and eventually back to his home. He was cute.

Then he chewed through our satellite cable. This was not cute. I was upset. I vowed to do something about it... but alas, procrastination and laziness convinced me that he was still harmless. Then, this spring, Chuck decided to eat some of Michele's tender young plants. Tasty I'm sure... but Chuck had pushed his luck too far and he and I both would be subject to Michele's wrath.

So, I bought a trap. I would trap Chuck and take him to a nice park and he would run and play and have little Chucks and we would all live happily ever after.

This morning the trap was sprung for the third time this summer. Today's catch brings the grand total to two raccoons, one baby possum, and zero Chucks. He's a wily little bugger and that's fine... to the victor goes the spoils. The disconcerting part is that in my attempt to remove one cute, cuddly varmint I have realized that we are infested with creatures of the night.

Oh well... Alex and I loaded him up and took him to a nature area near by. If anyone has a sure-fire bait for woodchucks, let me know. Until then, I'll just keep trapping and removing whatever is hungry and dumber than Chuck.