It’s spring at last and the start of gardening season. My wife tells a good story about her ex-husband, an animal lover and first-time gardener driven to uncharacteristic violence, tender mercy and, ultimately, hopeless resignation by one of Mother Nature’s most humble creatures.

From childhood J.B. wanted his own garden. He’d grown up in a Massachusetts suburb, so he didn’t get the opportunity until he married and moved into a semirural house in Maine. One spring, he and his new wife prepared a plot of ground behind their house and planted lettuce and other leafy vegetables. J.B. obsessively watered and tended his garden. The plants grew and matured, promising many delicious salads and table greens. Then, one morning, disaster.

Overnight, his beautiful plants had been mowed down.

Devastated, he consulted with a garden-savvy friend who told him the culprit was probably a woodchuck. J.B. moved to action. He bought a roll of chicken wire and constructed a protective fence. This worked for a few days. Protected from harm, the plants quickly grew back. J.B. was pleased; problem solved. Until once again he discovered his garden eaten. He returned to the hardware store and bought an electric fence, which he put in front of the chicken wire.

Confident he’d outwitted the woodchuck, J.B. watered his garden and watched it slowly come back to life. His chewed-up plants sprouted tender new leaves, and again he was hopeful. But his optimism was premature. Despite J.B.’s double-fence barricade, the persistent woodchuck regrouped and attacked once again, climbing over both fences.

The woodchuck had clearly crossed a line. Now it was war. J.B. added another wire fence in front of the electric one. The triple-enclosed garden now looked like a miniature maximum-security prison.

But J.B. knew the war wasn’t going well when one day he watched the woodchuck climb over the first fence, get zapped by the electric fence, and then nonchalantly climb over the third.

His friend told him the only way to stop this critter was to shoot it. Reluctant but desperate, J.B. borrowed his friend’s rifle and stationed himself in the upstairs bathroom window, feeling a little like Elmer Fudd. He’d never shot a gun before. When the varmint appeared, he pulled the trigger. The woodchuck yelped and ran squealing into the woods. J.B. raced outside and followed the blood spoor to the animal’s den.

He felt terrible. He loved animals, and now he’d shot one. Despairing, he jumped into his car and raced to the grocery store, returning home with a head of lettuce.

Daily, for weeks, he placed a few leaves of lettuce or cabbage at the opening of the wounded woodchuck’s den. In the meantime, J.B.’s garden grew back.

You can probably guess the ending to this story. Healed, well-fed and happy – thanks to J.B.’s guilt-ridden and animal-loving ministrations – the ungrateful woodchuck made a final assault on the regrown garden, decimating it.

Defeated, J.B. abandoned his lifelong desire for a vegetable garden. Victorious, the woodchuck was never seen again.