A few months ago, Greg called me into the backyard to help solve a mystery.  Our lawn was torn up, kind of rolled up in patches.  How could this have happened?   It was so strange – something I’d never seen before.  It didn’t look like a vandal, or something human – we had considered an alien invasion but thought better of it.  A quick search online suggested that possibly it was a raccoon invasion.  Since we have had raccoons in our backyard before, that explanation made sense.  It seems that the raccoons roll up the sod looking for little grubs to eat.  These grubs are not usually there, so the lawn is generally left alone – but somehow the raccoons know when they are there, and then they feast.

 So, to get rid of the raccoons, sites suggest you get rid of the grubs.  And that means all kinds of nasty chemicals.  No, not for us.  Poisons can go straight from our lawn to the lake, hurting our wildlife.  We decided to take our chances and hope that the raccoons would run out of food and move on to another lawn.  No such luck.  It only got worse.  We kept researching.

Finally, Greg came upon a natural solution: Cayenne pepper!  It seems a little spice mixed into the buffet would turn the raccoons away.  Ah!  Sounded good to me, red pepper can’t hurt animals, just maybe enough them enough to take their interest away from our lawn.  It is an inexpensive remedy, too – I went to the grocery store and got a bottle of the cheapest cayenne, came back home and sprinkled away.  Quite colorful, the green grass and the hot red pepper.  And so far, it seems to be working!  I’ll keep you posted.

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