Find the ground hog's burrow(s) and bury a #1.5 leg hold at the entrance.  It has to be placed very firmly and hidden perfectly, you'll have to adjust the trigger to go off if you breath on it.

Yes.  I caught 2 inside the breakfast room of the house.  I didn't know she had babies though.  Usually I'll hear a raccoon scurrying across the attic or in the walls but that hasn't happened in months.  

I was able to get the 3rd one out of the wall today and took it to the shelter so it could be reunited with its siblings.

The lady that took them said she has over 30 babies now.  That is a lot of raccoons to feed.

Does the state offer grants, funds, or supplies to help these people?  She said it is costing her $80 a day for all the food/formula she uses.

I've considered becoming a rescue, I've got the room and the know how for most of it.  I just don't have the time to get my own stuff done, just like you, plus I like to travel and see family.  Growing up on a farm I learned early on that animals don't take vacations and still need to be cared for every day.

Some of the bulbs I had to dig up and relocate while moving the garden.  I've forgotten what these even are.





When it comes to the giant elephant ear plants, last year I cut all the leaves off, pulled the bulbs, and did dry storage with one and grow light storage with the other.  After 6 months in the basement here is what they look like now.  




The dry storage has a benefit of lighter weight, no maintenance, and I'm able to prune off any shoots.  That gave me a clean single bulb to plant.



Putting the bulb in dirt and and under grow lights produces a plant and gets a good start for the following year.  However, the roots are all intertwined and there is no way for me to separate the shoots.  Will those shoots pull energy and the main plant now end up smaller than the single bulb plant?  




Both bulbs planted.  The red arrow points to the top of the dry storage bulb.  The plant with the leaves does not seem happy after the transplant.  

They have over wintered at least once.  At this point I can't even remember when I planted them much less what they were.  Pretty sure it was a bag of bulbs from Costco, possibly 2 years ago now.  I thought they were supposed to be some type of Iris.  A bag I bought this year had some gladiolas in it.  It was only later that I found out most don't over winter but there are some hardy gladiolas that will.  One of the bulb websites I was looking at shows the hardy zone for where things can grow instead of where they will over winter.  I had almost purchased from them when I found out another site that showed me most of what I was going to buy would need to be pulled out every fall.  I'm trying to build low maintenance flowerbeds not ones that require more work.  

The main set of plants I still need to move are Iris. They just finished blooming so now I will move them.  Then I can start working on digging out the old rock wall and starting to move that.

Meet my new retaining wall project supervisor.




It has nothing to do with the fact that I may place a hotdog on that log from time to time.




Always giving me the stink eye when I'm not working.




And motioning for me to get back to work because that wall isn't going to build itself.

Kitty!

Would I not want to bury them about the same depth they are when I dig them up?  They are done flowering and I need to get them moved in the next few days.

My groundhog problem is multiplying.  Mother leading 2 juveniles out to ravage all the plants. Other videos show at least 3 juveniles.  

Fox update.  The female will now hang out for a couple hours if I am out.  She can be out there as early at 7:30 and still stick around until 10pm.  She will follow me around hoping for food but now ever after she eats she will just hang out in the yard near me.  The male stays in the shadows but now does not run off if it sees me.  He still doesn't like it if I stare at him and will move.  















The female laying in the yard as I take a break.  This was well after I fed her more than enough.

Was finally able to capture of picture of the two foxes out just before dark.

@Kitties-with-Sigs

It gets better.  I've been working to get the male more comfortable with my presence. I have an update that I will be posting in the near future.  I'll leave a hint, the number 5 is involved.

I've been working to get the male to trust/tolerate me more.  Making some progress.  I've gotten the male to come closer. Male and female waiting for pieces of hotdog.

Well,  we're waiting!

There has been so much going on and things have been changing that it is hard to even know where to start.  I don't want to give it all away at once.  I have a lot of video of the foxes and spent a lot of time trying to get the shots.  It has been a blast the last couple of weeks.  Just being out in the yard and garden with the foxes running around during the daylight has been a great experience.

To begin with the hint 5 was incorrect but more on that later.

I'll start with this video called "What does the Gray Fox Say?".  There is one spoiler in it but you have to be quick to notice.  The video is mainly the male fox, which I call Fred, and the female.  Fred was not happy with my presence for 2 days and let me know.  After that he settled down.    

The next clip is sort of a preview.  It starts the first night near dark and the camera would not focus correctly.  You get to see the foxes but it's blurry.  The last clip gets better.  In the video is Fred, the female, and others.

One unusual trait of the gray fox is its tree climbing ability. It is the only fox capable of climbing a tree.  Video of the female climbing part way up the tree several times to retrieve a hotdog.

Enjoy 15 minutes of relaxation with a Wild Gray Fox.

Raw footage of the fox family from 6/30/2022.  Cute half grown foxes towards the end.

This is still just scratching the surface of the video footage that I have.  The foxes were hanging out near the shed for about two days, then the male took two down towards the creek and only 2 were at the shed. The male continued to move the kits away from the shed and then across the bridge.  

Now the female still hangs around, Fred will come if here hears me feeding her but then runs off with the food.  He is either making the young ones learn how to track their food or he is just trying to move them across the creek.  He will let the younger ones see that he has food and then takes off full speed down the hill, across the bridge, and into the woods.  The little ones are right on his tail trying to keep up.  Then he comes back for more food and repeats the process.  The female will occasionally take food down to them as well.  

@Kitties-with-Sigs

It was obvious the female had little ones and was nursing.  In the pictures it looked like she might have been feeding 2 babies as just her back 2 nipples seemed to be used.  What happened in the video below was unexpected and amazed me.  I never would have guess she was nursing 4 kits!  Previously I had seen 3 of them running around but stayed quiet about posting it here as I was trying to get better footage.  I ended up getting the best footage possible.

This video, which I was lucky enough to be rolling when this happened, shows 4 little ones running up to and going into the shed with their mother.  This scenario only happened once as the male started moving them away from the shed and across the bridge.

Not sure how I have never seen this thread before. Have been enjoying it this morning over coffee. Thanks for posting it.

Quoting this because I just got done pulling apart a raised bed garden I am building out of block after I learned this exact lesson. It is just a little project I thought. Not worth taking the time to stake it out and run a line.

Halfway through the two sides were running out from each other by two inches. Over the full course I would have had a four inch gap between blocks at the far end. Nobody seems to have invented a block stretcher, so out it came.

The string line not only makes the layout more accurate, it lets you work faster because you do not spend all the time trying to square and level each block to each other. Just check against the line, and if it is within whatever your tolerance is, set the next one.

Yeah, the block walls get out of line really quick.  There are people that do it without a line but they have developed the skills to see it.  I was shocked that even with a level going from block to block how far it got out of line in just 35 feet.  

I still haven't finished that wall.  Too many projects going on all at the same time.  I did add more courses but the custom cuts on each end disrupted the work and then needing to get it back filled with rock and compacted also derailed things.  The lawn doesn't stop growing, the gardens need to get put in and taken care of, trees keep getting blown down...and of course being distracted by the foxes doesn't help.  I am close to getting the main part of the wall done though.

Animals at the bridge earlier this year.  I haven't seen a coyote there is a couple of years.  

Correct.  I'm slowly working on getting a better camera setup because the game camera doesn't catch anything smaller than a coyote.  The foxes run across the bridge constantly I don't I have a single video of them.  

On the subject of the walnut trees that were declining last year, the Kentucky Division of Forestry reached out to me this week because I sent in branch samples last year.  They are still looking for walnut twig beetles and are currently placing traps around the state to see if they can catch any.  They asked if I would like to participate and I agreed.  They will place just one trap on the property, filled with some type of liquid bait to draw in the beetles if they are in the area.  Every two weeks they will come and check on the trap for about 6 weeks.  

I mentioned the sycamore tree dying off and was told there is a different fungus that has been killing them off as will.  In addition to setting up the trap they will schedule a site visit for sometime soon.  I have other trees that are declining and a couple dead trees that I hadn't noticed until this year.

I'm still battling the Ailanthus altissima. I took several down this spring but still have about 20 more to go.  What is wrong with Catalpa and Osage Orange?  I have one of each and they aren't causing any problems.  As for the boxelder I've taken down several and have a few more to go.  What is taking over the property is hackberry.  They made up about 50% of the trees.  I've been removing those as I go as well.

Back in early July I lost another black cherry, it got snapped off at the base during the high winds.  Unfortunately that took out the top half of a red maple when it fell.  I have two more black cherry trees with about a 30 degree lean.  I don't want to take them down but they are a major safety hazard leaning that much.

There are a couple different projects going on but I find the foxes the most interesting.  Here is what is going on with them.

The video I posted was of the 4 kits running into the shed followed by the mom.  That was the only time I captured them all together as the male started moving them further away.  At first he took 2 and moved them down by the creek and she had 2 at the shed.  Then I would only see one kit at the shed.

Stills from the video of the 4 kits with the mom.  The first image is one kit next to the mom and you can see some gray further down the hill.




Second picture is of the other 3 kits.  If you haven't seen the video you should watch it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eKuEkWsyw




For awhile I was able to call the male, I named him Fred, and he would show up and take food to the kits.  I believe he was using the food as a way to both train them and move them.  He would grab the hotdog and then take off running down the hill and across the creek as fast as possible.  The kits would follow trying to get the food but then only he would return.  Fred moved them further across the creek and into a wooded area I haven't cleared.  Eventually he stopped showing up so I went back to feeding just the mom and 1 to 2 kits in the shed if they showed up.  

I started having some issues with people cutting through the property and probably going through the wooded section where Fred had moved the kits.  Then I started noticing the mom taking food to area to a wood patch on the near side of the creek.  A couple weeks past with no sightings of the other kits but an occasional sitting of what I assumed was Fred south of the shed.  

Then the kit that stayed in the shed started following the mom and venturing out more.  Here they are up next to the house.




Then things got really fun.  The other kits started showing up.  I believe Fred brought them back from across the bridge and has them in a fenced off wooded area on the south side of my property.  They too seem to be ignoring the direction of the parents and wandering around more.  

I don't see the kits during the say but at night this is now what has been greeting me the last couple days at dusk.  The kits are 80% grown and in low light from a distance it is hard to tell them apart from the adults.  It is the female in the foreground and I believe the 4 kits in the background but the furthest one away could be Fred as one of the kits is a runt and still very skittish.





These are the faces looking at me when I tell them there are no more hotdogs left and I'm getting ready to leave.




Video of Gray fox kits playing and chasing after bites of hotdog.  Seeing the video is ok but being there and feeding them in person is awesome.  I need to get better lighting to get good video, the kits come out in the darkest part of the yard.  

Screenshot from a video of the foxes that I took tonight.  Only the mom and 3 of the kits showed up tonight.

I was able to capture a picture of the whole fox family tonight.  Sorry for the potato quality, this is the darkest corner of the yard and I was using a flashlight in one hand to illuminate the area a bit and take the picture on my phone with the other.

My eyes may have been playing tricks on me last night but several times I was sure that I saw 7 foxes!  The middle of the yard is terraced and I would count 4 on the top terrace and 3 on the bottom.  But those little guys move quick and it was dark but multiple times I could have sworn I counted 7.  Also the female several times would hear something and run to the terrace wall to look down at the lower level which suggests there was something she heard that was out of the ordinary.  

Fox family photos from tonight's encounter.  Still working the lighting and camera positioning.