Lettuce Alone

Story and Photos by Joseph Zahnle

In northern Idaho, if you have a vegetable garden, there’s a good chance raccoons will show up to raid it. The critters can scale fences to get in, and then they’ll do some damage. If you have water on your land, as we did when we lived outside Orofino several years ago, every animal in the area will visit for a drink, including raccoons.

We used to see one near our house as it ran across open areas toward the pond and then back to where it came from. We didn’t think too much about it, until growing season. Then we’d see partially eaten vegetables every day, and its little tracks in the garden. It had become a pest, and we needed to do something about it.