Mastodawn

Annie in Progress 8h ago

What the heck?

I've never seen raccoons tear up lawn like that. Skunks have left patches of damage while looking for grubs.

Oh yes.

Annie in Progress 8h ago

@elliek Golly!

Ellie Kennard 8h ago

@LikeItOrLumpIt
Having seen this, when I went to wake Steven, I told him not to look out the window. So what did he do? Straight to the window. I bet he wishes he'd listened to me now.

Don Ray 8h ago

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Your (former) lawn must have a bonanza of grubs or earthworms.

You might try changing the music. Maybe disco or Sinatra would be a better repellent. 🙂

In non-freezing weather, you could try a water hose with a motion activated sprinkler/sprayer.

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Ellie Kennard 8h ago

@donray
Thanks for the ideas Don. The property is basically just too big, and much of it has no access to water. I guess we do have a bonanza of grubs. Probably June bugs. See my other photographs in response to the comment by Annie.

Don Ray 7h ago

The sprinkler is definitely for smaller areas. I’m thinking of getting one because the deer have made a shortcut from the woods to the river through my garden.

Golf courses deal with the problem by poisoning all the grubs so critters aren’t attracted. Not an environmentally friendly solution.

In the larger field, I would be tempted to scatter clover seed (red clover and trefoil) in the affected areas. It would probably grow and provide food for pollinators.

@donray not going to poison, same as you.
But it's extremely disheartening.
The larger field doesn't actually belong to us, but to the community. It did have a fair amount of clover and similar wild grasses and flowers that were good for pollinators. And the trouble with sowing anything down there is that there is no access to water. If we have a similar summer to last year, with a drought, then nothing would grow anyway. Steven usually keeps it cut fairly high with patches where it's uncut, simply so that it deters rats etc from coming up into our property and his workshop.

Don Ray 6h ago

If it’s mowed somewhat, that will keep the really rank, tall weeds from growing, which is good. Occasional mowing is s good management tool. The field will probably recover pretty well from roots and seeds in the soil.

I just hope the critters don’t send you a bill for aerating the lawn.

@donray
Me too!
At one point a few years ago, we looked into getting nematodes for the lawn. Unfortunately though, it was going to cost us way too much money and we simply couldn't afford it. We've never really had a lawn as such, as we've been really comfortable with wild flowers and dandelions and so on, with Steven mowing as needed. The mowing also keeps the ticks down.
What gets us, is that there are loads of places where these guys could dig. This didn't start until a few years ago. We're not in the middle of a city. Or even a town. So why now? And why us?
Well I guess I'll never know the answer to those questions.

Dan McCullough 7h ago

@donray @elliek At our previous house we had built a small koi pond in the backyard and of course the raccoons came to do a little fishing. We bought a Scarecrow, a motion activated water gun. We borrowed a night vision camera to see how it performed. The raccoon came into view and squirt, squirt, squirt… the raccoon had met its match. Unfortunately, the Scarecrow made so much noise that it woke us up everytime it activated. So we had to go with a massive wire roof over the pond.

Don Ray 7h ago

@danmccullough @elliek

It’s a jungle out there!

@donray @danmccullough
I guess they were here first. But in that case where do we go?

@danmccullough @donray
I don't like to think of it as a constant fight. But

@elliek Sheesh!

@lydiaschoch
Thanks. I think.

Moe Lassus 5h ago

@elliek We have an uneasy relationship with raccoons too. They like to raid our water garden. I don’t remove the nets from the ponds until I can put out the motion activated sprinklers which, so far, have been very effective. We don’t have a lot of lawn but it would be all out war if they were to start doing that to our garden!

Horst 5h ago

@Ellie Kennard
Do you have one of those camera traps that automatically took a picture of the raccoon in the middle of the night? I'm surprised it's even out and about at this time of night. Maybe it's an early riser.

Ellie Kennard 5h ago

@horst
Yes. It's a trail cam. They do their work at night. It's rare to see them in the daytime.

Lstn2urmama4 5h ago

@elliek HI I need more to understand what happened ??
Confused...