fixing the wire

I spent today working on the boundary anti-rabbit (and muntjac) fence.  We know from the grazing and digging, plus photos from the trail camera, that both are coming into the garden regularly.  When we started the garden we installed conventional rabbit fencing, which for a long time worked pretty well, though the odd determined bunny used to jump over.  However, it is not high enough to stop muntjac, and over time it does get broken down in places where tree branches fall on it, or extra-determined animals gnaw holes in it.  I'd been stopping these up as I noticed them, but have now done a more systematic search and block exercise.

To stop muntjac jumping I'd added a second higher layer of wire netting in places, but unlike the original rabbit wire it wasn't attached to a strand of heavy wire along the top, and over time it had fallen down again, so I've been adding a top wire and attaching the second layer of netting to that, and fixing a higher layer along stretches where there wasn't one before.

It is all rather dull, when there is so much weeding and clearing and planting and mulching still to do, and pulling the next crop of goose grass seedlings out of the bed by the ditch while admiring the pulmonarias and cyclamen seedlings is so much more fun.  Wire is not pleasant stuff to handle, and  I've collected a few more scratches and my fingers hurt.  But there's no point in planting things for them to be dug up again, and in worrying about weeding when established plants are being regularly browsed down to stumps.  A friend commented that by now the rabbits were probably living in the garden anyway.  I hope this is not true, but if they are she can give me the name of somebody who will Deal with Them.

The great unknown is whether the badgers will accept having their runs and routes blocked up.  In the past they've been quite amenable, but it may be that one of today's holes could be on a sort of badger version of Elephant Walk.  There is another solution to try if that happens, which is to build them a badger gate.  I've seen such a thing at Waddesden Manor.  It is like an extra-large cat-flap.  Rabbits couldn't move it, and I don't imagine muntjac would, though they are quite stout little deer.  But given there are loads of other things to do it really would be better if we didn't find ourselves having to fabricate badger gates.