Cats suck, and a final decision for Diesel

By Friday afternoon I had 8 tomato plants, 2 basil, 4 jalapeños, and a bunch of onions planted. By Sun afternoon I'm down to 5 tomato plants, 2 basil, 2 jalapeños, and half the onions. The cause?

Cats.

They chewed everything up, pulled up half the onions and tossed them aside, and then left behind several big, steaming piles of crap right where my knees would go were I foolish enough to kneel without looking first. The gardening forums offer humane, non poisonous methods for control, however I'm thinking a margarita and a .22 would be more gratifying. However, since *my* cats are the ones doing the damage, I will have to settle for something that doesn't cause permanent damage.

Tomorrow I'm headed to the hardware store to buy a lot of carpet tack strips. I've found that's about the only thing that will stop the wretched beasts from walking around in the bed. Mothballs work really well too, if you can ignore the howls of outrage from the chemical free crowd. That stuff they sell in stores that you sprinkle around to keep cats out is useless. If a cat has ever pottied in the area, you have to remove 3-4 inches of soil, lime it, and then cover it with the granuals, and I've still had cats use it after that.

I suspect a Caddyshack meltdown is coming.

In other news, Diesel has graduated from killing chickens and baby goats, to killing lambs, finally producing the straw to break my back with two dead ewe lambs in the past 3 days to add to the 3 lambs I suspected he killed but wasn't certain. I don't understand that dog. He can't keep from harassing small critters. We've had many MANY Come To Jesus meetings over this behavior, and I thought the last one had an effect, but apparently it was short lived. When I had the goats I absolutely could not trust him around the kids. He killed over 2 dozen, just chased and played with them until they were dead. He never had any interest in the sheep though, so I thought *maybe* he could work out with them. Evidentially not. I hate to do it but tomorrow he's headed to the clinic. A flock guardian who kills his charges is lucky to be alive past his first kill. I worked with him for another year trying to break him of it. Anyone else that I know with sheep would have shot him the first time he killed a kid. It's possible they'll attempt to rehome him, but I won't hold my breath.

That leaves me with just Jack. I wish I had a dozen like him.