Spawn of Cupcake (or Cupcake is Ruining My Life, Part II)

Baby Woodchuck, posing behind his designer galvanized salad bar

There's this time in the early morning when it's not quite light, but it's not quite dark. And I wonder: might I get away with a quick dash out the backdoor to the garden shed, wearing nothing but my skivvies? It would only be just a moment.

In the time it takes to think that, the sun rises a little higher. It becomes most decidedly clear that streaking in my own urban neighborhood would not be prudent. So, bothersome as it may be, I take the time to throw on sweats and a tanktop - a hampering process, when I'm really champing at the bit to see who (anybody?) is in the woodchuck trap.

Lo and behold, it's Cupcake's Baby! Good God, I've got him!

High on victory, I rush into the downstairs bakery to do a little dance in front of the baker, and announce: Guess who won the smackdown? Me, me, me! There will be no rematch - I've caught that fat little vegetable vacuum, and he's totally outta here.

As Matt, the baker, will point out now, I was gloating. I made coffee and a frittata, I ate on the backporch (basking), I grabbed my keys and went out to collect my 'chuck for transport to the State Game Lands.

Oddly, from a distance of ten feet, it appeared my trap was empty. Hard to believe. He's practicing the wild animal art of camouflage... surely?

Good God, he's gone. That little motherf&%$er.

I was terribly deflated. I was grumpy pretty much all morning, grumpy enough to tell Matt to make his own damn change during bread sales at the farmers market. I wasn't sure how that chubby Baby (who is the size of a cantaloupe) made his escape until this evening, when I witnessed a reenactment after having reset the trap. Remarkably, he's able to flatten himself into a jellyfish-like 3/4-inch pancake and bolt - not slither - out from under the (sloppy) door.

What a crappy freakin' trap.

As I type on the back porch (where I am drowning my garden sorrows in Chardonnay), that little bugger is gobbling clovers. He is welcome to all of those that he can stuff in, as well as the dried out old opium poppy stems he's sampling. But please have mercy on my cauliflowers, okay?

So. I need someone to build a better 'chucktrap, because this one sucks. If you revisit my blog and find a final post featuring a photo of a burnt out old lot littered with smashed forty-ouncers and smoking tires, it's because there's nothing left of my garden, after Baby has had his way.

Cupcake is Ruining My Life, Part I