This is Their Home, Too
As we begin planning our garden space in Vermont, we're getting to know our resident wildlife
Those who have followed us since we were in our home in Minneapolis, Minnesota know that we have always practiced a unique way of living with our resident wildlife. We have peacefully coexisted with raccoon, opossum and any other wild creature that has wanted to live in or around our space. People thought we were crazy when we let a mother raccoon raise her kits in the Oak Tree in our back yard.
She lived there for years and we grew very fond of her. We could always recognize her because of the tear in her left ear. Rather than being a problem for our chickens, whose coop was right under her nest in the Oak Tree, she provided us joy and excitement, watching her raise her rowdy offspring each year. Just for fun, here is a video going up into her Oak Tree to find her taking a break from nursing her kits.
Other chicken-keepers were always shocked that we let her live there year after year. They insisted she would kill all of our chickens or eat all of our eggs. Not only did neither of those things happen, we are unaware of her ever taking any eggs or causing any problems whatsoever.
The same could always be said about the opossum who liked to try to find shelter under our chicken coop during the cold winter months. Many people insisted they would kill our chickens or eat the eggs, and, again, neither thing happened. Instead, they were fun to get to know and shockingly easy to manage.
At our new place in Vermont, we are taking a similar approach to living in a much larger and more wild space. Deer, bear, weasel, fisher, countless birds, reptiles and amphibians live on our land and in the surrounding forest. The process of getting to know them is just getting started as we are putting up trail cams to learn where they are living and what they are doing.
With that in mind: Meet Wasker, a HUGE woodchuck who lives in a large hole along side our drive.
As is typical when people learn about wildlife living in our yard, people have already suggested Wasker should be trapped and relocated or shot. They say he will destroy our garden and worse. As you probably guessed, we’re taking a different approach: We’ll just plant enough food for him.
More trail cams will be going up soon and we look forward to introducing you to more of our resident wildlife, like this mother deer who has been bringing her two fawns around the back of our property for a while.
This is, after all, their home, too. And they have been living here far longer than we have. It is also far more fun to share it with them than it is to try to keep them away.