Varmint

Someone new moved to our neighborhood about 6 months ago. Actually "something". A big fat Raccoon. And he is menacing our property. He started with the lawn, digging up sod wherever he felt like digging. At first we suspected any number of things, but when Stubble and his friend caught sight of the beast through the family room window one night while playing a marathon session of World of Warcraft, we knew what we were up against. Our first volley was motion sensor lights aimed to cover the entire back yard. The Raccoon's answering salvo was our fish pond. He started by shredding the netting that covers the gazebo that protects the pond from local fish eating birds. He escalated by tearing up my water lillies. I replanted and he tore them up up again. The lillies are now residing in a water garden on our deck where I hope that they will recover from the trauma.
The Raccoon continued his vandalism, leaping from the top of our shed to the gazebo roof - where he fell through toppling the waterfall that feeds the pond. He has also eaten one of our neighbor's koi and a frog (tossing the uneaten half back into the pond).
This means full out Raccoon War. Last weekend we bought "poultry mesh" basically chicken wire made out of really tough plastic. We removed the damaged netting and attached the poultry mesh with hundreds of black cable ties..,.
I sincerely hope that this keeps the little menace the heck away from our pond. Time will tell. Wish us luck.