An Author's Revenge

"Don't make a writer angry, or they'll put you in a book and kill you off." 
Have you seen those silly memes? Honestly, whenever I've seen something like that on the internet I've thought it was kind of mean. But that was before I moved to the California coast and started a garden.

The fine clay soil on my part of the coast was once an ancient seafloor. Now it is the pocket gopher's favorite building material. They thrive here, building vast networks of tunnels that run under roads and driveways, allowing them to pop up in any yard they please. And these tunnels hide them from predators like hawks and falcons, allowing their populations to soar.

Among many of the crimes that pocket gophers have perpetrated against me personally? Undermining my lawn until we couldn't walk on it without falling down into their collapsing tunnels. (We now have gravel there, that sits on two layers of strong chicken wire to keep the gophers away.) Eating almost every flower and vegetable I've ever planted. And even eating extremely large landscape plants!



When we moved to this house by the Monterey Bay, I'd had experience with gophers in San Francisco. So I knew that I had to plant each plant in a chicken wire basket to protect its roots. I knew how to trap gophers, too. But I wasn't prepared for these gophers.

These gophers know how to dig all around a trap, so they spring it by the sheer weight of soil they've loaded on. Then they proceed on their merry, munching way, totally unscathed. These gophers tunnel all around and under the chicken wire baskets, weakening the plant so it is stunted and sad and then dies a slow death. And in the past year or so? These gophers have started leaving their tunnels and strolling casually across the garden to nibble on whatever they please!

"Just whack then with a shovel," my sister said when I told her. "That will kill them."
"I use a BB gun," said a parent at my son's school. "That takes care of them."
Bolstered by these tough statements, I resolved that the next time I saw a gopher above ground, I would take it out. Somehow.

So there I was, a couple days ago, watering the garden I'd just replanted after a gopher spent the winter decimating all of last year's plants. Suddenly, out of the soil popped a huge, fat gopher. It ran across the patio.

I'd promised myself I'd be tough this time. I'd told myself I wouldn't let a gopher ruin my garden again. I needed to do something about it. Now.

I squirted it with the hose. Which did nothing except send the poor creature running straight toward me in a blind panic. I shrieked for my husband. He came running, my son close behind.

Meanwhile, the gopher ran past me and stopped by the fence. It was frantic, digging for its life into some bare dirt it had previously piled there. The little critter was soaked and I could see pale skin beneath its matted fur. This animal I'd been so angry at for so long was terrified and pathetic. Any vague ideas I'd had about being tough and killing it melted away.

"Get a shovel," I commanded. "And a box."
"Are you going to kill it?" my son asked.
"I'm going to scoop it," I admitted. "And drive it out to the state park, where it can live happily ever after."

I tried to get it into the box, but the gopher, who quickly realized it was way more tough than me,  darted under the fence and disappeared into my neighbor's yard. Less than twenty-four hours later, it came back and destroyed the lavender I'd just planted a few days before.

Maybe I'll kill it next time I get the chance. Probably not, though. But at least I took my author's revenge. In my new book, Her Surprise Cowboy, gophers play an important role. They are food for the orphaned coyote pups that the staff at the Shelter Creek Wildlife Center are trying to save. The town's residents trap the gophers plaguing their gardens and bring them to the shelter for coyote meals.

So gophers, watch out. If you make this author angry, she'll put you in a book. And kill you!



Her Surprise Cowboy releases everywhere April 1st and is already available on the Harlequin website. You can read what early readers are saying on Goodreads




Comments

  1. What a great story! I wouldn't have been able to whack the gopher either. Too bad you don't have any orphan coyote pups in your yard. Maybe you and your neighbors should adopt a bobcat. Of course, then you'd need to do something about the bobcat (kind of like that song about the old woman who swallowed a fly.) Anyway, good luck with your garden.

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    1. Thank you, Beth! That reminds me of last summer when we saw a few gopher snakes in our neighborhood. My husband and I were joking that next time we saw one, we were going to find a way to trap it and bring it to our yard! Except then we decided that we don't really want a giant snake like that surprising us at any moment! The other funny thing is that we have coyotes all around us. They walk right down our street pretty often, even in broad daylight! So why don't they stop and eat our gophers?? I wish they would. Except then we'd have coyotes in our yard. Yikes!

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    1. Thank you, Liz! It is an ongoing comedy. This gopher is tough!

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  3. So funny! Love it and look forward to reading their demise ASAP!

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    1. Hee hee! I do worry that some readers will think I'm terrible, when they read the book and people are trapping these cute animals, but I tried to address how difficult the gophers really are in the story, so hopefully no one thinks I'm too bloodthirsty!

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  4. Loved the story of your gopher hunt. I hate trapping and killing anything. Unfortunately, if rats or mice make their way into the house, they're going to going, painful as it is. Spiders, now -- no problem killing them. Growing up, we had a cat who loved hunting them and we never saw their demise. I love the Monterey Bay area, would love to live there. Hope you're staying well.

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    1. Hi Callie! We had rats at one point and we had to trap them. I actually hired someone to trap them after trapping one myself. I just couldn't take it! I do kill spiders sometimes if they are in my house. I get really panicky around them! Yes, we love being by the bay, it's such a privilege to get to live here. A dream come true, truly. We're just one block away, so we get to visit the shoreline every day. We are all well so far. I hope you and your loved ones are doing well also!

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  5. What a great story! Made me think of sympathy for Mr. McGregor after I started gardening and Peter and his sweet little bunny friends (ha!) ate the lettuce down! We ended that fight when we moved onto a sailboat!

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    1. I've heard rabbits will just destroy a garden! We have them all around the town, in the open spaces where we like to go walking, but they haven't made it into the yard, yet! A sailboat seems like a good solution at this point! :-)

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  6. I have a groundhog and when I had some work done outside, the contractor put down all this chicken wire. They just burrowed under it. I feel for you and the gophers.

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    1. YES! Even when I have put sheets of chicken wire they burrow under. We put about three layers of chicken wire under our gravel patio, that used to be our lawn. But I'm sure they'll find a way through it, or around it, eventually!

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  7. In Alabama it's the armadillos that dig huge holes all over the roots of the trees looking for grubs. The only grub stuff that works smells so bad that you can smell it from inside the house. Then they still come back a couple of times to make sure the grubs are really all gone and they only come out at night.

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    1. Really?? I had no idea they could be pesky like that! Armadillos seem so cute and interesting to me since I've never actually seen one, but I can imagine it's a disaster for the poor trees!

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  8. Oh my goodness, what a story!

    denise

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    1. I'm afraid I'm coming across as really mean, hosing the poor gopher down. But it was just this split second reaction, and then I felt so terrible! But it seems to have recovered just fine. It is now busy destroying the lower half of my front garden!

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  9. Claire, I would have reacted the same way! One summer, when raccoons started making their way out of our woods and onto our deck, we decided to set a live trap and relocate them to a park several miles away. Every day my husband would set it and every morning we'd have another raccoon. This went on for weeks! Then we learned that raccoons need to be taken at least ten miles away or they always make their way home again. I think we were just re-trapping the same fellas over and over again, lol. Congrats on your new release!

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