Visitors to Windgrove love walking around the property hoping for a chance encounter with some of the local fauna. Along with the spiky ant eating echidna, a favorite, never-to-fail excitement, ring all the happy bells experience, is coming across a wombat.
To any “first time visitor” to Windgrove, a casual downward glance near the front gate to the house would only show a few wooden stakes of random heights protruding from the ground, slightly above the garden mulch.
A “second time visitor”, before venturing off on a walk would have been told (during their first visit) the story of the rampaging wombat. They would then see with their mind’s eye what lies beneath the garden mulch in a (not always successful) attempt to prevent one rather large male wombat from burrowing under, through and around all defensive structures in order to gain access to an area of lawn he considers his domain.
It is a complicated network of wire netting, stones and metal star pickets.
Why go through all this trouble?
Basically, once a wombat establishes territory, it is extremely difficult to stop any further digging of interconnected tunnels in and out of his/her den. Under a house built on stumps such as mine, there would be the real possibility of extensive structural damage.
So, despite really liking this stocky, neighbour hooligan with his insistent determination, I have spent many hours — weeks in fact — building up a several types of barriers to keep wombats from the inner sanctum of the home. Also wallabies, but that is another story.
Love has to have some boundaries.
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