They should name the county animal the gopher. They are everywhere in Sonoma County. They love to eat tender roots, especially grapes that have just been planted. At least 3 times we have heard of people planting a vineyard and in the first year they lose 1/4 to 1/3 of the vines to gophers. Very expensive. We are going to try and stop them early by putting in a gopher cage around our entire vineyard and garden area. Yes, 1.5 acres. You may think this is crazy but we are hoping it will give us peace of mind and make it easier to control them in the future. Basically we will dig down 3 feet, bury 1/2” square gopher wire that is 4’ tall and attach the top to the fence. After the vines are established, the gophers are not much of a problem.

Bees…….most of the time we love bees. They do all sorts of good things for the land and we try and leave them alone. Yellow jackets are not my favorite, but Karina tells me that they also do very good things. However, when the yellow jackets make their nest in the ground near the house they are a problem. Back a few weeks ago when I rented the John Deere 310 to take out the fence posts and stumps, I hit a yellow jacket’s nest that was near the house. Joey said it was funny, but I jumped off the tractor and ran around for about a minute to get rid of them as they were chasing me. I got stung about 10 times. Linda told me the best remedy is to put a paste of baking soda on the bite and the sting and itch will go away.
Oh,,,,,I asked Dane how to get rid of them and he said he had heard of water. After an hour on the web, I saw that people poured boiling water on the nests. I can tell you that this is the easiest and best remedy. It kills them on contact so when you pour it on them you don’t have to run and it doesn’t cost any money or pollute the environment. Took me about 6 trips to the kitchen over two days, but it seems like they are gone now. We will see in a few days when they till the land.