The rodent is back

I'm a pretty live-and-let-live sort of person.

Except when the creature involved has hundreds of acres of conservation land to hang out on, but decides my gardens are way better.

There's a woodchuck.

He's eating everything. Mowed down the sunflowers. Smashes the tall Phlox. I have an electric fence up around the veggies, because there's no way I'm watching him stuff his fat little face with all my effort. He dances through deterrents. Sashays through sprays. I hate him.

What it means is that this fall, I have to make another huge push to knock back the brush, expose his den entrances (plug them) and put hardware cloth up to block off under the shed (where he launches his attacks from.)

In the mean time, I've been making slow progress with the stripping of the Office. I have a new orbital sander on it's way to hopefully touch up the surfaces quickly once it's stripped.

Other than that, it's been too hot, and I've been too distracted to get much done.

Now that the wall is all nicely patched, I'm thinking about replacing this railing with something that might look more appropriate when I go to paint it. I found a manufacturer in California who would make be a custom black iron rail for $460 (including shipping.) We'll see. I still need to do that last of the sanding, and then prime and paint it all.