I had hoped this post would be about our victory over the urban raccoon (who with it’s dexterity and ability to retain it’s learnings has become a nightmare for our yard) but sadly I think we are waving the white flag.

Loving the new grass

Many of you may have read the post about the lovely landscaping we had done with a pond and fountain; well we went a bit further and laid sod and stones in our parking pad.  We loved just how great this looked compared to the gravel.

However, it didn’t take long for the raccoons to come out and start rolling the sod in search of grubs.  So after some research we tried coyote urine pellets  (don’t ask me how they get the urine in the pellets!) as the coyote is a predator of the raccoon.  Well the urban raccoon knows that

We were so hopeful…

there aren’t many coyotes in the city and was not deterred.  Next was the chicken wire laid over the sod with pegs to hold it down. While not pretty nor soft under our feet, we were hopeful and thought this was the end of our problems.  We’re we ever wrong.  In a violent rage (I am sure this is the emotion they felt when they saw the wire) the raccoons ate our water hyacinth’s from the pond and threw the remnants around the yard like chewed apples.  We decided to leave the pond free of vegetation…

With nothing to eat out of the pond the raccoons started digging through the holes in the wire to get to the delicious grubs so I paid $40 for the natural grub killer and sprayed the yard.  We also replaced the bulbs in the motion detector lights and left the shed lights on and all the back porch lights.

Some nights were good… some not so good but we thought we were starting to win! After one particularly bad night and on the recommendation of some friends we went and bought the ScareCrow^® Motion-activated Animal Deterrent – a motion sensored water sprinkler complete with neon stickers (at Canadian Tire for $79.99).  While every penny was worth the laughs we had trying to set it up I have to report that our yard now looks like this:

Shouldn’t have removed the wire…

Getting a quote tonight for interlocking brick…