will birds eat old corn-on-the-cob.

Cook it all ; eat what you want ; slice the kernels off what's left ; freeze it for future or refrigerate it for a day or two. My wife puts-up bags & bags of corn in the freezer each year - it lasts us until Easter usually. John T.

I remember Mom's garden. Raccoons knew the right time to grab the sweet corn.' They were sloppy eaters. They'd eat just a little off each ear then move on. The only thing that seemed to keep them out was electric fence around the garden.

Every year about this time I think about a garden. Then reality kicks in and I realize it would be total war all summer.

That's why I grow only garlic. Nobody seems to want to eat it.

I'm going to give lettuce a try this year. If the varmints get it, I'm only out a couple bucks in seed. I have some fencing in the shed to keep the rabbits out.

I had the same problem and fought all the critters but shade and deer finally did me it.

Deer ate everything except onions. Squirrels would eat the corn and I even had a groundhog eating tomatoes.

Shade in area is gone when the tree shading the area fell but to start a new garden I would need a six foot fence to keep out deer. Classmate has a garden like this but still needs to shoot the squirrels invading it.

Last time I planted a garden was at a neighbor's house who got stuck in India because of the epidemic. They had a raised area next to the house and I planted several things there but with no one around to chase them the critters ate everything as soon as it came up.

Whitetails sneer at your fencing... There are a couple of rabbits that hang around where I work in town but I've never seen any out here. Too many eagles and coyotes.

I thought I heard the cat on the deck last night but when I opened the door it was a skunk so they're up and about for the season. Skunks don't actually hibernate but they don't do a lot of wandering around in the winter.

Folks out her in the transition zones, build cages for their gardens and line the flood with tiles to keep burrowers out. Deer and squirrels are a big pain in the ass.

My big garden issue is the accused earwigs

I'm sure they would. In the 22 years I've lived here, I've seen whitetails three times. They never touch my flower gardens. There's plenty of other stuff for them to eat. Michigan is a green and juicy place.

We don't get eagles here, and it's been a long time since I've seen coyotes. Cats, feral and otherwise, are a bigger threat to the rabbits.

Our skunks usually start being active in February. The best think about snow on the ground is that the more unsavory varmints stay in their dens.

My husband thinks he can keep ahead of the skunks, possums, and raccoons by trapping them. He dispatches possums and raccoons with a pellet gun, skunks with CO poisoning. If he catches a cat, he pisses on it and releases it to go home wet.

Deer are browsers but some foods are more attractive like acorns or apples. I have seen them jump a six foot fence but they just might bump into a smaller fence and not bother. I have chestnut trees and cannot keep the deer away. I chased them with firecrackers and they came right back. One year I shot five of them in the rear end with my pellet gun and that seemed to keep them away.

In the winter they tend to eat anything. I tried growing ivy on some banks and it was OK in the warm months but eaten in the winter. Deer can starve with a full stomach because they were forced to eat evergreens with no nutrient value. One winter our son had the evergreen barrier near his pool browsed clean to about six feet by starving deer.

I have trapped a lot of critters and released them to more affluent areas. Trap and relocation is actually illegal here but I took a squirrel once to a wooded area in the park in back of a police station and a cop was in the parking lot and I told him I was releasing a prisoner and he said nothing as I let the squirrel go.

Like rabbits, squirrels around here have a short life. I didn't realize earwigs ate plants.

One day at the office the draftsman's wife called. She'd spotted an earwig in the house, went ballistic, and called the exterminator. Gary left hurriedly to deal with his crop. He wasn't growing tomatoes under lights in the basement.

No possums and I've only had one raccoon that apparently was a transient. I keep dry cat food and wild bird seed in a plastic trashcan outside. He tipped the can over a couple of times but as far as I could tell didn't like cat food or sunflower seeds.

I can co-exist with the skunk. While the cat runs off any other cat he feels is invading his territory he doesn't mess with skunks, being smarter than most dogs. Usually the skunk runs off when I open the door but a couple of times when he's been eating cat food he ignored me.

Skunks get a bad rap. You really have to wind them up before they resort to chemical warfare and they give you plenty of warning that you're pissing them off beforehand.

Pronoun usage: I have seen two skunks simultaneously so I assume there is at least one of each but I'm not about to start lifting a skunk's tail to check so I'll assume the masculine pronoun.

They like black oil sunflower seeds. I got sick of them trashing the bird feeder so I set up a pulley system in the tree. It keeps the cat honest too. He can't jump that high and hasn't figured out an attack from above that doesn't include a hard landing.

The tree is some sort of ornamental crab apple. The fruits are small and a little tart but the deer don't seem interested. I mowed the lawn yesterday and the mulching mower does a good job of dispersing the deer s*it.

I release trapped skunks back into the yard. It is said they will not spray if trapped and you can cover the trap and transport but I would not attempt it.

One night I heard the trap spring and I had caught momma skunk who had three offspring dancing around and on the trap. Trap was under and near edge of my deck and I was able to open it from the ten feet above. Sorry I did not think of filming it.

I have encountered skunks several times at night at friends hunting camp and never been sprayed. Of course I am the one to back off.

I wouldn't even call it a creek but I was getting ready to cross with one big step when I saw where my boot would land was occupied by a skunk. I caught myself in time and stood there until the skunk wandered off. It was daytime and with a skunk's poor vision he might not have noticed me.

Oh yes. They especially like sprouts. Caught them digging right down the hole to get the seed. They destroyed my cabbage two years ago:

I trap, soap, kill hundreds of them, but I still can't keep up with them

I've got canvas covers for the bikes but in nice weather I tend to leave them laying on the ground. When I pick them up there's often an earwig convention. It's more or less a gravel driveway with nothing to eat so they must just shelter from the sun. There's not much to eat besides grass and weeds and they're welcome to both.

That is interesting and I have never been quite that close to one.

One early Sunday morning, still dark, at friend's camp I went out to check temperature on thermometer outside and there was a skunk in the woodpile on the porch. He was only a few feet away. I was leaving that morning and was afraid to go out but he had left by that time.

I've got an automatic feeder for the cat and one night when I went out on the deck the skunk was helping himself. I was a couple of feet away shining a flashlight on him and he wasn't bothered. Unlike the video the skunk's ass was pointed away from me so I figured I had time if the situation went downhill.

The skunk was probably hunting grubs in the woodpile and wouldn't have paid you any mind.