Tomato thief

Okay, so the saddest thing that happened in my garden was not actually the premature picking of the butternut squash. In fact it is what happened to my tomato plants.

See for yourself the carnage:

I feel a little bit like I've been punched in the stomach--by a nutria. Somehow a tomato-loving nutria has found its way into our yard multiple nights in a row and ransacked my tomato plants. After these several months of caring for them so carefully, gently, waiting so patiently for the blossoms to turn into fruit, this disgusting rodent comes and nullifies all my work AT HARVEST TIME, no less, with his rotten little chewer. Ew. I am so angry.

This was one plant before nutria:

And after:

So we borrowed a live trap from Tom and Tara and Jeff set it up tonight. I am scared to death to think it actually might catch this little nasty and it will be thrashing around in that cage tomorrow morning. We'll see if it works.

My parents have deer at their house eating their flowers, fruit and veggies and are constantly frustrated by the situation. My dad told me he wants to throw rocks at any deer he sees. At first I thought he was just mean. Now I get it.