Desperately need advice in dealing with a serious problem

It has slowly developed over the last several weeks and involves repeated trespassing and vandalism on our property by two grown adults.

One of the adults is a male and the other is female.

They apparently have little, if any, respect for our property and, out of sheer frustration, I am about to take matter into my own hands.

The basic problem is that they repeatedly trespass onto our property and cause serious damage.

Whenever I see them and rush outside to confront them, they either just walk away or run away.

They will not respond whenever I angrily yell at them.

They, quite often, just run across the street and then stand there at the curb and stare at me, as if they are defying me to do something.

Before you even begin to suggest the obvious solution, it would be useless to call the police because by the time a patrol car would get here, the culprits would be long gone.

I have no idea where they live, but because of their frequent visits, it must be somewhere close to our home, which is in the older part of the west side of Carson City.

What are we to do?

I am totally frustrated, don't really how how to deal with this on-going problem and am turning to you, the readers, for advice on how to solve it.

Let me give you some background and history, as to how we arrived at where we are today:

Back on April 3-20, Elaine and I and her mom, Mary, spent 18 days on a honeymoon/vacation trip to four different countries in Southeast Asia.

We returned late on April 20 from Bali, Indonesia and I left the very next morning for a private, invitational, four-day, fishing derby, which was headquartered at Topaz Lake.

Then, that weekend, Elaine and I hiked into Roosevelt Lake in the Hoover Wilderness Area of California for the opening weekend of the 2002 California trout fishing season.

The weekend after that, we spent visiting relatives in the Redding area in Northern California.

Needless to say, during all the time that we were gone from home, Mother Nature was very busy and hard at work, making all of our lawns, trees, bushes, shrubs, plants, flowers and weeds grow at a very healthy rate for the warm weather months.

When we finally returned home to stay for an extended period of time, we were meet with an almost overwhelming array of long, shaggy lawns, tons of large Dandelions, huge weeds everywhere, winter debris, broken tree branches, overgrown flower beds, etc.

It was mind-boggling.

We rolled up our sleeves, got out the tools and went to work.

During the next month and a half, Elaine and I, with a lot of hard work, slowly but surely began to take back control of our outside areas.

The lawns were fertilized to remove the many Dandelions.

They were then watered on a daily basis until the summertime, odd/even, water rationing began, June 1.

The front and back lawns are very neatly mowed and trimmed, once a week.

All of the trees, bushes and shrubs were carefully pruned.

The accumulation of all of that large amount of winter debris was raked up and removed.

The miserable weeds were pulled out of the flower beds and tree rings.

The flower beds were carefully prepared for the planting of our flowers.

Yahoo! One whole month and a half of time, effort and expense and our property was finally back into tip-top shape. It was ready for summer.

Then we culminated all of our hard work with the planting of exactly 324 flowers (Petunias, Daisy's, Marigolds, etc.). The 324 flowers consisted of 54 six-packs. That is a lot of flowers!

Everything was in perfect shape and the colorful flowers were a sight to behold and admire.

Our property was a showcase for us and anyone else, passing by.

Then, the problem began.

The two vandals arrived and began to harass us.

They have repeatedly come onto our property and destroyed our beautiful-looking flowers.

Most specifically, they destroy only the white-colored Petunias.

Why those particular flowers?

I really don't know but those Petunias are the ones that they have targeted for total destruction.

They keep coming back on a daily basis and I am getting desperate.

If I get the chance, I have vowed to catch those two.

But am also afraid that if they are caught, red-handed in the act, I will do something very rash.

I would dearly love to snuff them.

No, that is not a misprint. I would dearly love to snuff them.

Then, because I am diabolical and would want to extract retribution, I would place their two bodies in a roasting pan with their little legs sticking up in the air, slowly roast them and then enjoy a highly illegal but tasty gourmet, Quail dinner.

Yep, that's correct, those two vandals are adult Quail.

They are full-grown and, boy oh boy, do they love to eat our white flowers.

Those two, little, lovable-looking rascals are decimating our flower beds faster than we can plant flowers.

They dearly love our white Petunias.

I wouldn't mind if they just nibbled the petals but they eat everything right down to the stalk. Some areas of my flower beds look like sections of tiny telephone poles without the wires.

H-E-L-P!

What can we do?

I sincerely love and admire Quail, always have and always will, but I am becoming more and more desperate and certainly don't want to become a bird murderer and poacher.

However, I also don't want to spend a fortune planting all kinds of colorful but tasty flowers as a steady food source for those, two, little trespassers.

I have asked many different friends and relatives for advice on how to deal with those two, little Quail.

To a person, they have all snickered, laughed and told me to keep on buying flowers on a weekly basis to feed them because we will not be able to chase them away, permanently.

How in the heck do you deal with two ravenous Quail?

I really don't want to snuff them. They are too darn cute.

What are our options?

Would someone be willing to spend hours, standing near my flowers to scare them away?

Can I put something in my flower beds to scare them away?

Do I shoot fireworks and then get in trouble with the fire department?

Is there an anti-Quail device such as a "Rent-A-Cat?"

Is there an anti-Quail device such as a "Rent-A-Hawk?"

Does anyone have a large, mean cat that I could borrow on a temporary basis?

Geez, I need help.

Any suggestions?

At this point in time, it's war!

It's either me or them.

One of us will win in the end.

If I win, we will probably enjoy a tasty Quail dinner some evening.

If they win, my flowers beds will be totally consumed.

And I'm afraid that they will win, because they are too darn cute to harm.

What would you do?

H-E-L-P!

-- Bet Your Favorite Pigeon

Bet your favorite pigeon he can't tell you what a group of Quail is called.

If he is very knowledgeable, he will tell you, "Most folks call a group of Quail a Covey but it can also be called a Bevy," and you lose the bet.