Return of the Pepper Thief [S. Worthen

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Sadly, the story of the Pepper Thief (which has to be a racoon) is not yet over. Last night, it returned to take its tithe. Perversely, despite all the new plants I planted, it seems to like the established ones better, and took the last of the original 6 pepper plants which it had not already claimed, plus one (of the 4) oregano plants. For some reason, it keeps trying to take the plant identifier-cards as well. Indeed, the original pepper identifier things-you-stick-in-the soil have vanished without a trace, but the oregano label was still on the deck, several feet away from the oregano pot. And it had had a good dig at the label for the new pepper plants, but evidently abandoned it after the satisfaction of making a hole in the soil.

Do racoons just particularly like pepper plants? (Most hadn't gotten past the flowering stage and into the pepper phase so I'm not counting on the fact it was after actual veggies.)

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There are 4 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

shana! your trip sounded marvelous! two weeks' worth of cross-pond bliss...

...after reading your woeful tale of pepper plant thievery, i'm beginning to wonder if, in fact, your plant thief might not be a little larger than a raccoon, yet retain its opposable thumb. actually, i'm thinking that your thief might be... human. i can't for the life of me think *why* a 'coon might want the plant labellers... but can think so if a human is your culprit.

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I might suspect a human-type culprit too if the circumstances were more agreeable to it. But the deck where I'm keeping all these plants is on the third floor of the house and, unless the human had a key to my apartment, they would have to scale the side of the building. And personally, I think that, if they'd bothered to scale the side of the building, they could use their time up there more productively than by stealing one or two plants at a time and then climbing back up for more a different day. And the plants reliably disappear at nighttime, so it would have to be a human climber who didn't need a great deal of light to climb.

A squirrel could also be a possible culprit, but we've had squirrels up there many times before that I've seen without any real havoc coming from their presence. Unless it's a new hyper-intelligent (in a wierd way) squirrel. Also, half the time, the culprit either uproots the plant and leaves it abandoned elsewhere on the deck, or else chops it down at its tender young base. The other half, however, have entirely vanished.

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Huh. {wandering confused brain noises}

But *why* would a raccoon climb three floors to pilfer your peppers? I don't understand! *waaah!* The mess, I can see... raccoons aren't neat thieves. For your others to disappear without trace... that just doesn't seem like something an animal is capable of. If you ever find your culprit, please disclose! else many will be lost and confused, crying "Why?" in the wilderness. Well, maybe not as dramatically as that... but heck, I'd like to know now too. 8)

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Jenene, my houseguest, says it could still be a human since humans are wierd and maybe someone is scaling the house at night, just for the fun of it, and stealing my pepper plants one or two at a time. Along with the labels. Anyways, that's her vote, if not mine.

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S. Worthen | Weblog

Return of the Pepper Thief

(no subject)

The culprit in question

Re: The culprit in question

Culprit, take 2

October