There is a fuzzy little menace in our backyard. I have tried reasoning with him, yelling at him, bargaining with him, and putting marigolds around my few pitiful pots of vegetables that actually got planted this spring. But yesterday, it finally happened: the damn woodchuck ate my cucumbers. And cilantro. He even tried a couple of poblano pepper leaves, but apparently he didn’t like the results–those ended up spat out right next to the plant.

My husband and I are being notably conservative with our finances at the moment, so when he told me he’d called two pest-control places about humanely trapping and relocating Mr. Woodchuck and then told me what it would cost, I laughed. As much as I would like this particular variety of cucumbers this summer, they aren’t worth that much. So we are trying another home solution: cayenne pepper. I planted a few more cucumber seeds (I can’t find the rest of the cilantro seeds, and it’s annoying) today, and then he put a nice fat border of ground cayenne pepper on the ground around my “garden.”

We’ll see what happens. Usually, when I have to make war on the backyard, it doesn’t fight back with big pointy teeth. And I swear, that woodchuck looks like somebody’s been feeding him Miracle Gro . . .