MOTH's Revenge

As much as MOTH's a sensitive sorta guy & he likes to think he's in touch with his inner MOTH, I've only ever seen him close to tears twice. Once was last year when Liam Jurrah, Melbourne Footy Club's most promising recruit in about 100 years, did his shoulder in a pre-Season practice game with the Adelaide Crows & was out for 16 weeks. The other time was 2 Summer's ago, when the poor darling (MOTH, not Liam!) stormed into the kitchen from the garden screeching at top note 'Those bloody possums are in for it!!!'

It transpired that in a well planned overnight raid, MOTH's entire fledgling tomato crop had been totally decimated by a group of marauding possums. Weeks of daily TLC had gone into what was looking to be his best-ever crop. He was desolate for weeks.

His heart wasn't in it in 2009, but late last year he came home one day with a heap of seedlings, announcing that he was growing tomatoes this year & the possums were on notice.

As most long-time Hedgies know, MOTH has turned our old Tennis Court into his 'allotment'. He grows my Christmas & Asiatic lillies in their pots down there, has all his Winter firewood 'curing' in rotating piles undercover ready for our Winter fires & does the occasional vegie or 3 in containers. This time around, he's decided to experiment & grow his tomato crop in old fertilizer bags full of his own special herbs & spices recipe of vegie potting mix.

He's planted a mixture of Tigerella's & Black Russian's & so far they have done really well. But I was getting worried that the possums were sitting up in the big trees with their binoculars firmly fixed on the crop & voiced my concerns on Saturday night. 'No worries Mills,' was the confident reply 'I've got it all in hand. No possum is going to get the better of me, just you wait & see.' So when he jumped out of bed at 6a.m. yesterday & I heard the screen door slam, I knew he was up to something. 3 hours later he emerged from down the back, gleefully announcing 'Mills, come & see what I've done!!' So I dutifully padded down to the Court in my trackie dacks, still clutching the Sunday papers, to be greeted with the edifice in the first image.

MOTH had fashioned together a fancy covered frame for his precious tomato plants using a whole heap of stuff he'd scrounged from the Stirling Rubbish Tip. Old metal struts, lengths of discarded purple pipe from some failed irrigation scheme that the boys from the Tip had put to one side for him & a whole heap of bird netting one of the local Vineyards had chucked out. To say he was triumphant was an understatement!!

I can even see it through the trees from our back verandah, which of course means that our long-suffering neighbours, C & K can too from the salubrious surroundings of their flash new deck - oh dear! That'll cost MOTH a carton of Stella, C's favourite tipple to smooth things over. I have a mental picture of the possums all in a huddle up in the tree plotting their next move. As much as MOTH reckons he's got 'em licked, I reckon it's game on. Stay tuned for the next round in the game of MOTH vs.The Possums!!!