Garden Gremlins
For the last week or so we've had garden gremlins. One morning a couple of plant pots were knocked over. Another morning one of my tomato plants was denuded of its green tomatoes: the tomatoes were strewn across the lawn in an almost straight line. Another time we discovered a two inch hole in the yard. Yesterday morning, the corner of one of the pieces of sod that we had laid earlier in the summer had been pulled back at the corner, like it was a turned down sheet on a bed. All the edges of the adjacent pieces of sod was also disturbed. Garden gremlins.
Last night, I was walking home from the metro at about one in the morning. The neighbourhood is wonderfully quiet at that time of the night, and I think I met our garden gremlin. It was busiying itself in the neighbours yard. We peered at each other cautiously from a few yards away, each of us fearful of the other. Then it slowly started to waddle away, the white stripe across its back undulating hypnotically.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that we have a skunk, or perhaps a family judging by the small size of this one, in the neighbourhood. After all, we have raccoons and a myriad of birds. We're just an urban wilderness. And the skunk makes sense as the garden gremlin. I believe that they eat grubs and it was probably digging up worms and insects in my sod.
Hopefully my cats don't encounter the skunk. I suspect Taz would treat it like a large squirrel or an odd-looking cat and chase it. That would not be good. GC on the other hand, would probably leave it alone.