Back to the Garden.

There's a critter visiting our garden at night, and it's starting to make my blood boil. I never saw myself as one of those people at war with the squirrels or whatever, in fact I always thought those people were a little ridiculous. I took the stance that it's humans who have created all the habitat problems so it's we who need to take it in stride when the animals wreak havoc in our yards.

But two out of three of my goddamn tomato seedlings and one of my chilies have been chewed off and left there. Whatever it is is not even eating them, just destroying them. And we have a three-foot fence around the garden, so it's something that can jump or climb pretty high.

My dad has some kind of a gun and he shoots and kills raccoons in my parents' backyard. And they poison the chipmunks. Dozens of them. It goes on all summer long. My mom and dad are not gun people, but they have no mercy when it comes to the garden. Now, to me that looks more like a massacre than gardening. But I'm starting to understand.