We Had a Rock Delivery and It Rocked (with video!)

Here at the Professor Haus we have a groundhog problem, which I have told you bout in a sideways manner in a previous blog. Well, one of this destructive cutie’s favorite place to burrow is right at this junction of the house:

We have a lil corner there that, in the spring and summer, is filled with day lilies and sometimes lil daisy things. Twice a year, the groundhog comes to dig. Once in the Spring and another in the fall. We’ve done a lot of research on non-harmful ways to deter the groundhog.

Here is what we have tried:

Filling the hole back up with the same dirt that was dug up out of it.
Sprinkling cayenne pepper around the holes
Other things we’ve sprinkled around the holes
- Garlic
- Ammonia
- Lavender
We also tried using things from our own bodies
- Mickey’s hair
- My hair
- Pee
  - Mine
  - Mickey’s
  - Some random fox’s
And those ultrasonic spike things that I told you about in that blog.

Now, I will say that the spikes have been moderately successful. While they don’t deter the digging completely, it does decrease the damage significantly. My theory is that the beeping breaks their digging focus enough to get annoyed with it and move on to somewhere else.

We have also had a healthy bit of success filling the holes with pea gravel that we buy by the bag at our local Ace. But the problem with that is that the groundhog will just find the next-nearest place to dig.

Which is what it has been doing in our lil corner. It took me a good three days of finding the hole and filling it before I realized the nearby spike was not beeping properly. I legit think the groundhog broke it. I dunno of any other explanation. So I put a new one in, and the digging has pretty much stopped.

And, also, I will say this: when I say digging, it’s just, like, an entry hole that leads to the burrow network beneath the ground. And there are only a few. And this is really the only one I am concerned about, because it is so close to the house.

We have been fighting the adorable mess for three years now, so we felt like it was time for a more permanent situation. The lillies are lovely and all, but we have since discovered that the lillies are one of our nuisance groundhog’s diet staples.

I figure if I move the lilies elsewhere, like the riverbank where I am perfectly fine with groundhog holes, maybe the groundhog won’t be so interested in its food-front property.

So, I’m making myself a lil rock garden. I’ll show you a pic when I’m done.

Instead of buying the bags one by one at Ace, we decided to call a local landscaping supply store to see if they could do a rock delivery for me. They could! So I organized it!

I did a bit of math to figure out how much of which rock I wanted to plop into my yard. I had an area of about 8×10 feet to cover, so I took to about 1 million online calculators to figure this stuff out.

Here is what I landed on:

2 yards of pea gravel
1 yard of large cobble

Then I went to the website of the local spot we had decided on. Put in my address… and they don’t deliver to me. I searched the address to see how far they were from us… less than 4 miles away. SO I sucked it up and did something I don’t often do… I called them.

And, y’all, organizing this delivery was, like, scary easy. I am always used to one million hoops and a bunch of rigamarole before I even get to the reason for my call. This one took less than two minutes. Maybe even less than one.

Here is a short script:

Panetta’s (P): Panetta’s!
Jacki (J): Hi! I would like to have some rocks delivered.
P: Okay, what is your name.
J: Jacki {redacted}
P: What is your address?
J: The Professor Haus in the Mitten State (cute, right?)
P: Is this a good number to reach you?
J: Yes.
P: Perfect. What rocks you want? (they said it more eloquently than that, but this phrasing makes me laugh. say it out loud. go on try it. my words will still be here.)
J: 2 yards of pea gravel and 1 yard of large cobble
P: Okay, that sounds great. When would you like it delivered?
J: What are your delivery times?
P: 8am – 4pm, Monday though Friday.
J: (pauses to think)
J: Thursday!
P: Okay, we’ll give you a call when we’re on our way.
J: Perfect!

There was also a short payment section of the event, but my brain has blocked that out, because it doesn’t truck with capitalism or something. idk. I’m trying to get it on board with money being an exchange and not something bad, but it’s having a hard time.

This phone call, though? I dream of a day when all of my phone conversations with businesses I’d like to work with go this easily. All other companies should take a good, long, hard look at the friendly efficiency of Panetta’s!

Then I promptly forgot about the delivery until my phone rang at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. I ignored it, of course, because it was an unknown number. The voicemail said my rocks were on the way, so I wrapped up my morning pages and Italian lessons and geared up for some outside time.

The rock fella arrived in a big red truck.

I was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. HE was wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. It was friends at first sight.

He asked where I wanted the rocks, and I indicated an area in our yard.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I responded, “We don’t give two shits about the grass.”

Then he told me he suggested putting the pea gravel on the driveway, because otherwise we’ll never get all of it up, and it would be whipping me in the face every time I mowed the lawn.

I indicated a space in front of the white garage.

“Great!” he said and got in his big red truck.

And then, my favorite part of the whole proceedings happened: the pea gravel slowly poured out onto my driveway.

Here, I took video:

At first, it came out in a slow trickle (which was also satisfying), but once it really got going, I wished it could go on forever. It was so satisfying and scratched my brain in the exact right way.

The large cobble wasn’t as pleasing, but I got a video anyways: