Mystery

The other morning I looked out the front window and found my pretty little pink flowered bush squashed flat.

It had not been flat at the previous day's end. I have no idea what had sat on it to squash it so. I pulled off the broken bits and left it, to see what it would do. It has started to pull itself up again and yesterday I propped it back up.  I think it will be ok.

In the small back garden bed in the front yard I have growing three hollyhocks, one lupin and lots of long grass. I intend to put the spare wooden raised box along there when the hollyhocks have flowered. I was measuring that bit of garden bed to see if the box would fit, when I realised that the lupin was gone!

It was quite a large plant. It didn't seem likely that snails had carried it off, rampant though our snails might be. It seemed unlikely that a human had come and taken it. If a human was tempted by the plants in the garden, there are more attractive ones than a lupin partly buried in long grass. Also, there wasn't a hole where it had been.  It had simply disappeared.

Oh well. I'm not going to lose any sleep over a lupin, much as I like them. I decided to dig up some of the long grass, since I was there and so too was the garden fork. As I dug a few bits of grass out, I found the lupin root. It had come out with a large clump of grass. The plant had been apparently bitten off right down to ground level. And eaten, I assume.

The only thing I can think of that would likely have been in the garden and would squash a small bush and eat a lupin plant would be a possum. We don't often get possums in the garden, that we are aware of, but I can't think of anything else it could be.  Not bird behaviour, nor cat or dog. Echidna, possibly - although, do echidnas eat lupins? And I wouldn't have thought echidnas would find the locale to be delightful. And why eat the lupin and not the delicious, juicy hollyhock plants?

A mystery. I have no idea. Fortunately, whatever it was doesn't seem to have its eye on my baby zucchini, melon, cucumber, sweet corn and potato plants, Nor has it got into the backyard, where a veritable smorgasbord of herbs and plants awaits a hungry visitor. Something has been munching on the carrots' leaves but I suspect one of the many bird visitors and have take steps to deter them. And there will be big, big trouble if any mysterious creature eats my asparagus plants!