Scarecrow

We have had a vegetable garden for the last 25 years. Each year my husband has battled with wildlife. The first year, he called me wild-eyed (granted, it was a phone call, and his eyes could not be seen, but the sound of his voice made the state of his eyes quite clear).

Anyway, I was in the middle of teaching a Spanish literature class and we were interrupted by the PA system: Mrs. Tezcan, please come to the main office. At the same moment, the office secretary came in my room to watch my class.

“It’s your husband. He sounds really upset.”

Thinking immediately of my son, I ran down the hall to the main office. I picked up the phone. “Canim?”

“He ate my tomatoes!!” he screamed.

“What?”

“That woodchuck! He ate my tomatoes. And he didn’t even have the decency to eat a whole one; he just took a bite and tossed the rest on the ground. All my hard work!”

“You called me because the woodchuck ate your tomatoes?”

“Yes! At least 20!”

“Is Anka okay?”

“Anka?”

“Our son?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I have to go back to class now. Sorry about your tomatoes,” I said, hanging up before he could hear me, and the rest of the office burst out laughing.

Over the years, my husband has built a fence, added chicken wire, netting, dug trenches, and even filled woodchuck holes with roadkill. One year he caught one…and set it free. He can’t hurt animals. Not even ants or bees, so how could he harm a fuzzy fellow with big, sweet eyes? Impossible! And so, every year they return…along with the rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, possum, birds and deer.

Given all the time on his hands during the lockdown in 2020, he dedicated a great deal of time to the garden. He built raised beds, bought more soil, and perfected the combination of chicken poop, cow manure, and peat moss that he uses. Last year and this, we have had tomato plants on steroids. It’s quite spectacular. Both years, the little creatures did away with the cucumber, parsley and zucchini with relative quickness. My mint plants are growing profusely (apparently, none of the little fuzzies like mint). And the tomatoes? The tomatoes have grown to tower over us, weaving their way through the netting that was added last year when birds joined the group of crop destroyers. Even so, they have begun to eat tomato plants and green tomatoes.

A few weeks ago, my husband cursed the garden and swore that this was the last year he would ever plant again. The sweet furry garden creature(s) had bitten and discarded at least ten plants. Dismayed that he was so distraught, I decided it was time for me to get involved.

I suggested the time-honored custom of farmers everywhere: a scarecrow.

All the how-to sites suggested newspaper or straw as stuffing. Lacking both, I decided to use old clothes stuffed in garbage bags (so only the outerwear would get wet in the summer rains). I scavenged the bins under my son’s bed where clothes had been gathering dust since he left home three years ago. I found jeans, lots of old underwear, t-shirts and socks. Needing more shape, I found some lackluster pillows in the attic to fill out the upper body. Fully stuffed, it weighed more than me, so I nixed the stake idea and sat him in a chair in the midst of our beautiful, ten-foot tomato plants.

We named him Jason. (That was probably stupid on our part.)

It looked way too real.

I screamed multiple times when entering the garden. My husband got to the point of chatting with Jason while working in the garden. We joked about having nightmares and the scarecrow taking midnight walks.

We were only joking. Ha ha, wouldn’t that be funny, ha ha, just like a horror movie, haha.

Until yesterday we found Jason with one leg over the fence, in the act of climbing.

Yeah, so maybe the four-legged fuzzies got together to get back at the two-legged ones.

It could happen.

But, just in case, Jason has been reduced to his original pieces which have been laundered and packed away, separately, in labeled boxes in the attic.

Maybe we should build a greenhouse…