You can protect your base from ground based creatures by building an earthen berm (using stone and the hoe to raise ground) all the way around your base, barn, and gardens and then digging a steep pit in front of the gate(s) to keep them from reaching the gate (you can span the pit(s) with a single core wood beam that you can walk across and the enemies can't. You can build flooring on either side of the beam when you need to move a cart across and then pick the flooring up when you have the cart back inside.)