I FOUND OUT WHAT HAS BEEN EATING MY GARDEN

I became even more convinced it was a moose after discovering this morning that some of the remaining pea vines were decimated in the night, evidently from the tops. So I was out there this evening picking the rest of the broccoli (so far untouched) ...

And all of a sudden, with no warning, a GROUNDHOG exploded out of the broccoli plants at my feet. (Definitely a groundhog/woodchuck. Not a marmot, not a ground squirrel. A groundhog. We do have them in Alaska, and this isn't even the first one I've seen here, but it's certainly the first one I've caught in the act of SHAMELESS GARDEN BANDITRY.)

They're reddish colored and large, about the size of a big cat. I screamed, because I was not expecting LARGE MOVING THING IN THE BROCCOLI. I'd had no idea it was there. It spend past my feet and under one of the cars and vanished.

So the culprit has been identified, and it's definitely coming back every day now. They can dig and they can also climb (jerks), so building a groundhog-proof fence would be a heck of a job. I asked Orion for ideas. He asked me if I mind if he pepper-sprays my garden, because he has some expiring bear spray and he wants to find out what using it is like just in case he ever has to use it for real. I'm like, sure, why not. I gave him some guidelines (don't spray anything I plan to eat, lower leaves only, etc) and went into the house to be out of the literal line of fire.

Shortly I heard coughing and sneezing and he came into the house eventually to report that bear spray is highly volatile and prone to floating on the wind. Good to know. A few minutes later, *I* was coughing and sneezing too, because it turns out it also sticks around on clothing and skin. (I didn't get it nearly as bad as he did, just a coughing fit and some running sinuses, but COME ON.)

He has now thoroughly showered.

And that's the story of how we bear-sprayed ourselves while trying to bear-spray the garden.

(He reports that bear spray tastes like very spicy food. Apparently the active ingredient is capsaicin, so it's not toxic. I didn't get enough of it to actually taste it.)

I guess we're about to find out if groundhogs enjoy spicy food.

I really enjoyed this David Dastmalchian interview and also this adorable associated piece of fanart from the part of the interview in which he basically starts channeling Gurathin.

And some of my stuff on Tumblr:

Something I noticed rewatching the first episode

Random thought on bookverse!Gurathin

Oh, and I posted another fic a few days ago, Old Familiar Sting, which is pretty much all about characters working through the aftermath of Corporation Rim medical trauma.

summerofhorrorexchange revealed today! I got an astonishing 15K(!!!) Biggles fic (!!!) which I won't be able to properly start reading until tomorrow, but I cannot WAIT, it looks amazing and I'm dying to read it!

Obligatory reminder that I have a fic in the exchange as well. Deeply mysterious, hid my tracks amazingly as usual. And there is a lovely selection of other horror fic as well!

Earlier today, before all of that, I posted yet another Murderbot TV-verse fic, System // Handshake (2500 wds, gen, post-canon). Summary is spoilery for the finale; it's loosely springboarded off another fic I'd read earlier.

There's also this seriously adorable short interview with the whole Murderbot cast (link goes to Tumblr) in which they talk about playing the Bitter/Sweet game from the show on the set. HOW ARE THEY SO CUTE, I DIEEEEEE

And, longer and more serious, but I really enjoyed watching this David Dastmalchian interview; he talks about the show, as well as some of his other projects (Dune; comic book writing) and is so adorably excited about the show and invested in it.