Last winter, a horticultural expert had a look at my tangled mess of a grape vine, and pruned it back to a shadow of its former self. I was afraid it would be set back, but the grape vine responded by putting out more growth and more grapes than ever before. Now they are slowly ripening, and I was looking forward to enjoying a delicious harvest of sweet, intensely flavoured grapes in October.
Two days ago, I went out to the back yard to shuck the last dozen cobs of corn I'll get this year, when I looked up in a nearby tree and saw two adorable half-grown racoons. They looked cute, with their masked faces and fuzzy tails, so I broke a cob in half and left it for them.
Big mistake. The next morning, the beautiful ripening grapes climbing up my deck looked like this. They are not even ripe yet - they need another month. Last evening, I stepped out on the deck and there the little critters were again, hidden in the leaves. I yelled at them, and they took off.
I decided to grab a big ball of black netting to cover the grapes. By then it was dark. When I started the painstaking job of wrestling with the netting and tying it to the grapes, I heard a rustling - there they were again - back in the vines, filling their faces. Then I got mad, grabbed a broom, and screamed at them loud enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear.
I also tied netting across the deck steps and around the outside, hoping that will keep them at bay.
There seems to be no more damage this morning - whether it's the fear of getting caught up in the netting or the screams of a crazy lady with a broom, it appears they went looking for an easier meal somewhere else.
