Groundhog Fence 2.2

Well, as you can see, it isn't pretty, and it isn't exactly elegant, but we have managed to graft a "baffle" onto the top of our groundhog fence. Since we already had some of the wire fencing left over from the construction of the main fence, all the project cost us was a bit of back pain and a whole mess of mosquito bites. We just cut lengths of the fencing, bent them at a 90-degree angle along one edge, maneuvered them into place over top of the existing fence, and then bent the clipped-off ends of the wires from our unsuccessful Groundhog Fence 2.1 over them to hold them in place. The result is a bit wobbly-looking, and it makes it a little hard to get the gate open, but as far as we can tell at this point, the little rodents can't get over it. Time will tell, of course, but so long as it succeeds in keeping our one surviving cucumber vine intact, we'll consider it a success. We can always make further modifications to it (versions 2.3 through 2.10) as needed to improve its appearance or functionality.

We're really hoping this works, because the groundhogs are actually pretty cute (as you can see from this recent photo of the mama with one of the babies), and we've found that watching them out the back window is much more entertaining than you might expect, so long as they're munching on clover rather than our cucumbers. So we'd much rather be able to coexist peacefully with them on terms of mutual civility with them than to hound them out of our yard. Ideally, this whole project will turn out to be a case of good fences making good neighbors.