I can’t believe it!  It’s about a hundred degrees out here, so I was surprised to see my rosebush swaying in the breeze.  Wait a second…there’s no breeze, it’s a hundred degrees and not a breath of air!  I ran out and sure enough, the rosebush was on its side, the cutest little furry little gopher dude you ever saw poking out of the hole looking surprised.  In an instant he was gone.   It really is a good thing they are so cute.  I really would like to pet one, they look so soft.  There are no roots left on the bush.  It’s dead, I’ve been this route before, no sense trying to save it now.  It took me about 18 years to finally get a deer fence up in the back yard so I could have a rose garden and now this! 

I quickly put the last of the chili powder concoction down the hole after the little fella while I muttered profanities under my breath.  I was reading a forum awhile back and a poster was quite disgusted at the other posters who talked in evil terms about the many ways one could destroy a  gopher – why would we be so hostile to a living creature who just wants to share the earth with us?  Why be so hateful?  Everyone pretty much ignored this poster but one kind soul gently suggested that when your vegetable garden disappears in one fell swoop even the most evolved nature lover gets a little testy.  That was back in the spring and I think I hear that poster, out in her backyard, swinging a shovel with one hand, a lit gopher bomb in the other, her hair falling disheveled around her face, a wild look in her eyes, muttering something along the lines of “go ahead, make my day, where are you, you little…”

What kills me is that it was my procrastination that caused this latest casualty.  I knew I needed more chili powder stuff because there was evidence of the adorable little rodents when we returned from Oregon, but I figured I’d get it tomorrow.  This happens to me a lot in the garden department – in the springtime I always have a sixth sense that it’s time to spray a little deer repellant but I put it off until tomorrow and sure enough, all the buds on the rose tree in the front yard will be stripped bare in one long night of deer debauchery.

Fall always comes around just in time before I give up and spray Round Up on the whole damn garden and replace it with gravel and flamingo whirlygigs.  Hope springs eternal in the rainy California winters.