Often I'm asked, 'Pete, how's the chuck treating ya?' People remember my yearly battle with the chuck, the fat rodent who visits my gardens savaging beans and flowers and lupine. This year, after a few assaults, I spread chicken wire along part of the woodpile and rocks, too. Somehow, that seems to have discouraged him from making his home under the wood pile. I have waited and watched. I have studied the lupine leaves, a delectable favorite of El-Chuckoh. I've seen nothing. I know. I know. He sits, waiting on the perimeter, waiting for the moment to attack. But so far, even the scarlet runner beans (right) have not been eaten by him. (Earwigs, snails, and who knows what have been chewing on the leaves, but at least it's not the chuck!)June has been good for the garden so far. The birds have been teaching their young, with baby finches, mocking birds, and cardinals flitting about the neighborhood. And the chuck perhaps is tending to his/her brood in some distant place where the pickings are better. Or more likely, he's just waiting for me to let down my guard. (Wasn't it last summer that we found the chuck in mid-summer standing on the wire fence plucking pole beans?) And so we wait with vigilance.
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