Some of you may remember about a month ago I wrote about my husband pruning back the wild blackberry that is threatening to take over the world. In that post I went on to explain the very startling surprise he made when he came across a very large wasp nest. In that post I also mentioned I had found instructions on the internet for keeping the nest for displaying once the wasps abandon it in the fall and winter months. (Clicking on the picture of the nest will take you to the first post about this wasp nest.)

I decided to go take a peek at the nest today to see how it was doing and to also see if it was still there. I guess I must have had a hunch that something happened to it because on my way up the little incline to where it is located in the blackberry bush I noticed a few things weren’t right. It is funny how when you come across something that shouldn’t be the way it is when you come across it your mind takes a little bit of time to register just what you are looking at. That is exactly what happened to me when I made my way to the area of the blackberry where the nest was hidden.

The first thing I noticed was a path through the weeds had been made into the blackberry bush. We have not gone back there with our weed eater since my husband made his discovery for fear of disturbing the nest so consequently the grass and weeds are overgrown around that area of the blackberry. There is now a very noticeable path through the grass and weeds that I know was not there before.

In the picture above you can see the path that was made into the blackberry.

The second thing I noticed was bits of the nest scattered all around the outside of the blackberry. Being rather foolish as I was so baffled by what I was seeing, I tried to get a little bit closer to the bush to see just what might have happened to the nest. I unknowingly stepped on a twig that snapped and upon hearing the snap a bunch of wasps began to fly out from under some of the mutilated nest pieces. I did not think there were any wasps still remaining! If I had realized this I would have most certainly not gotten so close to the bush. I’m sure you can imagine just how quickly I got my too curious behind out of there.

The gray colored bits that look like fallen leaves are some pieces of the nest that remain. Don't let the picture fool you- I was NOT that close to the bush when I took these pictures. I just have a good zoom on my camera! I am staying away from that area for awhile now!

So, as I sit in the safety of the house typing this I speculate what might have became of this very large nest that was destined to be studied by my boys but is now no more. Of course my first thought is of my lovely little friend, the Red Fox. My boys want to believe it was a black bear as these have, on occasion, been spotted up here where we live. I think I will stick with the image of the fox in the blackberry bush thank you very much.

Whatever cleared that path into the bush seemed to have deliberately torn apart that nest. It also seems to have just happened too judging by how the wasps are acting. I am wondering if it was last night. Something enjoys my backyard a little too much at night!

It has been one interesting turn of events after another with my garden at night this year. I am ready to set up surveillance to catch these mysterious night raiders in the act!

                       Photo courtesy of Wayne Nelson 

Sigh. It looks like my nightly visits from the fox have returned. My daughter has these cute little gardening shoes (just like Mommy’s!). She was wearing them while she was out helping me pull up the Cosmos yesterday. They got pretty dirty so I left them out on the deck to be hosed off. I forgot about them and they stayed on the deck all night (stupid, stupid, stupid). Wouldn’t you know when I get up this morning there is one of her shoes out in the grass where the fox loves to drag its “toys”. I went out to the yard to retrieve her shoe and it is of course riddled with bite marks. The compost was raided once again as well.

I confess, I pretty much thought this little night critter adventure was over as we have had about a month of peace. I guess I relaxed too soon. Of course it has to start coming back around when I am gearing up to put out more transplants. (It loves to dig up my transplants- see previous post.) Can you hear my long, exaggerated, and frustrated sigh?

I meant to post this update a couple weeks ago but keep finding other interesting gardening tidbits to share instead. Today I am finally making myself sit down and post this update.

Some of you may remember back in June and July I was really struggling with a night visitor to the garden. This guest was wrecking havoc on my poor garden. It was digging holes in my finished compost that was full of worms, unearthing newly transplanted seedlings, biting up our hose, destroying potted plants, and tearing my gardening shoes to pieces. Every morning I would go outside to the garden and be afraid of what I might find next.

I had two brief encounters late at night with this critter but it was always too dark for me to really identify what it was. One night my husband decided he was going to find out what was terrorizing our garden and deck once and for all. It was close to midnight when he thought he was hearing things outside. That was when he peeked out the curtains and spotted what he is convinced was a red tailed fox. The large pointed ears combined with the bushy tail that had a dark spot on the end made my husband sure that was what he saw. The animal looked very sleek and appeared to be the size of a large cat. It stopped and made eye contact with my husband and would not move until we attempted to throw something at it.

Armed with my husband’s description of his encounter I scoured the internet looking for information on red tailed foxes. I found the below YouTube video to be pretty interesting and it helps to explain a lot of the things that were going on in our garden at night. Be forewarned though, it shows some fox calls that are rather horrible sounding.

We continued to find signs of its visits for another week or so. Then one day about a week and a half ago I stopped finding signs of it. I really have no idea what might have happened to our night visitor. My animal loving side hopes it is okay but my gardening side is happy to have things somewhat back to normal around here.