Tadpoles

I am sometimes a bit harsh with varmints that move into my yard.  The squirrels got at my tomatoes and beans.  The groundhog eats my flowers.  The deer eat the hostas and Caladiums in the front yard.  They are NOT my loved wild animals.

There is a whole wetland and swamp and running water area across the street.  There are oak trees and stuff wild animals like to eat.  They don't need to bother me.

What they don't NEED to eat are my plants.  So I fight back a bit.  I built an entire enclose around my garden beds.  I built a tall fence 30 years ago.  The deer don't jump it.  But that doesn't stop the rabbits and groundhogs. 

The Mews take care of the rabbits.  But they can't handle a groundhog (aka woodchuck or whistle-pig).  But I can. Those normally eat lawn clover, but they sometimes decide to eat all the flowers. 

That's their end.  A hav-a-hart live cage trap is great with melon slices.  They love melons. 

I have a large tub of water that the cage fits into.   One "blub" and they go to "groundhog beyond".  If I knew a faster way, I would use it.  I hate them.  I once caught a new brood outside the den and pitchforked them!  Mom groundhog hissed at me, but I got her later.

So here is the tub.

I'm also growing aquarium plants in it.  But a frog decided to lay eggs.

Most tadpoles will not survive.  Well, think of it.  If they did, my yard would be ankle deep in frogs!  So I was curious about whether my aquarium fish would eat them (free food of high quality).

They attacked like piranha!  That was enlightening...  So I also put several into my 2 Betta tanks (one betta per tank).  One ate them and the other ignored them.  Nature is weird...

The ones in the tank where that betta didn't et them grew fast.  Betta food aggrees with them.  Today, I cleaned the tanks (monthly requirement as they have to pee in the water they live in in small tanks). 

So I netted the large tadpole in the one tank and returned them to the outdoor tub.  You wnt to know how Nature works?  They will eat their smaller siblings.  So I netted out a lot of the smaller ones.  No great favor to them.  They will be aquarium fish food.

 I watch Nature shows a lot.  Everything is eaten by something else without mercy.  Usually alive, and often ripped apart into pieces.  So I don't feel bad about feeding tadpoles to my aquarium fish or tossing a few lucky large-grown tadpoles to eat their siblings.  That's how all animals survive. 

I will have to bury the drowned groundhog though.  Otherwise the vultures find it and that IS rather gruesome.  But I bury them near specimen trees and that feeds THEM, so that is good. 

The circle of life goes on...

BTW "baby fish", once a tiny pair of eyes in the aquarium hiding in the live plants, the only survivor of a platy, is full size now.  It is my favorite for having survived all the others that wanted to eat it like a tadpole.  Some get lucky...

Groundhog

You may recall I was trying to catch a groundhog in a live cage and kept getting skunks.  I approached them holding a tarp in front of me (assuming a weird floating tarp would not cause spraying).  I released one twice, running like hell after it emerged.

Then the 3rd time, I caught 2 skunks in the trap.  OK, THAT'S IT!  I dropped the tarp on the cage, waited a few minutes for them to calm down, and dunked the cage in a tub of water.  Well, what else can you do with a caged annoyed skunk?  After the 3rd time, it was obvious they were living here.

I sure didn't want to meet then while I was clearing the wild blackberry brambles from the backyard (my next project).    Even dead in the tub they STANK!  I dumped them in a storm drain.  Which is logical.  They rot and the water carries the bits away in small pieces, no smell.

The whole area where I caught them still smells after a week.  Their spray is an oily substance and lingers even after days of rain.

I got the groundhog though.  A bit of canteloupe slice as bait.  The amazing thing is that I SAW it go into the cage!  It sniffed all around the cage, found the opening, went inside, stepped on the lever that releases the door, and I had it!  And you know what it did then?  It calmly ate the last melon slice!  LOL!

After I dipped it long enough to assure it was dead, I dumped it into its own borrow and filled the op;ening with the dirt it spread out all around.

I hate groundhogs.  The skunks were just accidental pests. 

Next week, I'll see about renting a brushcutter.  Those wild blackberries HAVE to go.  The patch attracts too many varmints.

SKUNK!

Well, I trapped and eliminated the groundhog that took up living in my bramble-filled corner of the back yard a manth ago.  And usually there isn't more than one that moves in per year.  But when you live in one place 30+ years, you know what you normally see out the windows and what is not normal.

A few days ago, I noticed an un-normal movement out of the corner of my eye in the far back yard (I am far-sighted) and saw a small groundhog slipping back into the brambles.  I don't want any around.  They can dig well and get under the garden enclosure, they love to eat meadow flowers, and they are hard to chase away.  They can eat almost an entire garden in a couple of days.

I don't mind them personally, but they are amazingly destructive.  If they would stay in abandoned fields munching of food that does support them there, I would be thrilled.  But when they start eating things I grow, it is them or me. 

You may not like this, but when I catch one in a live-cage, I just drop it in a large tub of water and drown them.  It is the fastest way I know of.  They don't understand what is happening, they blurt out some air and are dead.  I've made myself watch...

So I had another groundhog set up residence among the blackberries.  I saw the burrow while picking some ripe berries.  So I set the cage with some honeydew melon slices.  They love those.

The next morning, I saw some motion in the cage.  Great!  I went out and discover a skunk in the cage.  Oh damn.  How do I get an angry skunk out of the cage without getting sprayed?

I stood watching it (from a safe distance) and thought about it for a few minutes.  Then I went to my she and took out a 6'x9' plastic tarp and held it in front of me as I approached the cage. 

From the skunk's POV, it wasn't a threat, just some weird blowy thing .  When I got to the cage, I draped the tarp on it all sides but the front.  Then after letting it get used to the cover (to calm down), and open the front of the cage, it walked out and I ran away 20' "just in case".

I had to spray the cage with hose water hard to clean it.  I let it dry for hours, and set it up again with more honeydew melon to try to catch the new groundhog.  If I catch it, it goes into the watertub and gets buried.  If I catch the skunk again, it will go that way as well.

And no, there are no pictures.  My focus was getting the skunk out of the cage without being sprayed...

Groundhog Day

It's a little late, but I had some thoughts about Groundhog Day.  I know the basics.  It started in Europe with Germanic tribes paying attention to when Bears and Beavers came out of hibernation.

And there were folk-sayings about "If the shadows are bright on Candlemas Day, Winter will be long" (Candlemas Day was halfway through Winter same as Groundhog Day is).

Somewhere along the line, the beavers and the shadows and Candlemas Day 1/2 through Winter got connected.

And let me note that Groundhog Day results are completely random in results.  There is a 33% random chance of the groundhog being "right", and it actually is 37% (no meaningful difference).

But what really confuses me is why bother with the groundhog.  People cast shadows too.  So why not just step outside and see if you have a shadow YOURSELF?  Do people think the groundhog will have a shadow and THEY won't?   LOL!

What?  It's just a fun thing to do?  Oh.  OK, "never mind"...

Groundhog

I have a particularly wary groundhog this year.  I set out my live cage trap but it wont go in.  I've named it Radar.

It is unusually observant.  And, apparently, groundhogs  have great long-distance vision and hearing.  Radar creeps out of the backyard underbrush (which I really ought to get out and cut down) slowly.  To the extent that it can think, it might call ME Radar too.

Radar can see at least 200 feet and can tell if I so much as slowly poke my head over a windowsill.  If I do, he stands up, looks straight at me and runs away.  On the other hand, he cannot creep out into my wildflower garden (which must seem like a Eden of food to him).  I know every stem as well as HE does and he can't hide his little head whenever I look out the window.

I see him as well as he sees me.  I've been kind.  As long as he eats the clover in the lawn, I don't mind.  And my garden is covered with chicken wire he can't get into so far.  If he would stick to the lawn clover, I wouldn't mind.

But he has a natural taste for the wildflowers I am trying to grow in a patch for the cats to prowl through, and when it comes to the cats desires to prowl seeking mice and voles vs the groundhog's eating habits, Radar has to go.

I have tried to scare him away.  I have tried to just discourage him when he wants to eat the wildflowers I'm, trying to grow.    No success on that.

So I will have to set up the Hav-A-Hart live trap cage again.  I set it up in years past when I had groundhogs and caught them right away.  Radar is more cautious.  I read that covering the cage with long grasses is good for suspicious groundhogs, even draping it with landscape fabric is good.

I don't want intelligent cage-wary groundhogs around.  From my point of view, stupid and catchable is better.  The websites say that cantelopes and peaches are the best cage bait.  I have a honeydew melon bigger than I will eat, so I will try some of that.  Radars predecesors ate my honeydews last year before I finished enclosing my garden are last year, so that should work.
I'll hang a slice from inside the top of the cage (because otherwise the ants just eat them). 

Varmint Wars

I was dismayed to step out on the deck yesterday and see a brown shape near my garden.  I initially thought I had left a log out there, but I gave a shrill whistle and it turned to look.  A groundhog!  And it was checking out my garden enclosure.

Well, I sort of trust the garden enclosure.  Its chicken wire around all the sides and top, and there is even 2' of chicken wire off the sides and onto the lawn to discourage exactly that varmint digging under the enclosure.

But I'd rather not have a groundhog beat my defenses one day when my melons are ALMOST ripe.  So I set my live have-a-hart cage baited with a melon slice and strawberry trimmings.  Caught it that night!

I dispatched it humanely and swiftly as possible.  It is now returned to the environment...  I found the burrow and dumped a load of cat poop in there.  There is probably another opening to the burrow, but it seems to have pulled the boards off around the bottom of my raised toolshed and I can't get at anything under the toolshed easily.

So this time I will place cinderblocks against the boards and hope that discourages any new groundhog visitors looking for new homes.

I guard my garden zealously!

Groundhog Update

First, if you just can't stand the idea of destructive suburban yard varmints being "eliminated", don't read further than this paragraph.  No pictures, and I won't be detailed about their fate, but I don't exactly "adopt them out to loving families". 

So, last post, I was seeking to capture the groundhog who was eating my garden melons.  I have 3 sizes of hav-a-hart cage traps (small, medium, and large - what else?).  The small one is good for squirrels.  I was using the medium cage for the groundhog (it seemed smallish), but apparently it was too small.  The cage doors kept being closed, with the bait pulled out, so the groundhog must has been able to back out of the cage before the doors locked on it.

I brought out the large cage trap  2 days ago.  It has only 1 door (the medium size has 2) and the trip lever is father in.  The groundhog has to be entirely inside to step on the trip-level.  I baited it with one of the melons only nibbled on.  I stepped on the melon to break it into pieces.  One small piece was at the entrance for enticement; a larger piece was inside the cage just beyond the trip-lever.

The next morning, the groundhog was in the cage.  It is "no longer with us".  I thought that was the end of the problem.  I've never had more than one adult groundhog here at one time before.

Wrong!  I stepped outside quietly to do some yardwork after lunch and to my surprise (you saw this coming, right?) saw a larger one running away from the garden.  I even heard it moving around among a serious bramble patch where I assume it has a burrow. 

I rebaited the trap and out it in the path I saw it run in with some of the remaining half-eaten melon.  And I made sure to put it where I could see it from the house.  Nothing like trying to see into my house from cage level...

An hour later, I saw another groundhog in the cage.  It is also "no longer with us".  It is late in the season for young groundhogs, but I will set the cage trap up again in a few days.

The good news is that I have an excavator arriving tomorrow, and the cage would be in the way of excavating equipment, so I have to wait.  The arrival of the excavator is surprise good news, but I will post about that tomorrow. 

Today was about the groundhogs...

I do want to say that I do not have an special dislike for "varmints" in general.  If I could look down across the street to some large field where groundhogs and rabbits happily ran around living their lives eating meadow plants, I would enjoy watching them and I would leave them alone.  When the squirrels used to be here just eating and burying acorns, I never bothered them.  When the rabbits contented themselves eating the plentiful clover in my organic lawn, I did not bother them.  I'm not sure what groundhogs eat that isn't damaging, but if they did, we would co-exist. 

But any common varmint that gets at the things I value, I will rid my property of them as humanely as possible and at no threat to wandering pets (no poisons, no snap-traps).  If there was such a thing as a "Golden-Eared Groundhog" that was endangered, I would catch it and offer it to whoever cares about them. 

But anything that eats MY food is asking for it...

Good and Bad News

The good news is that I found a residential excavator who is willing to come some distance to do most of the work I need.  I'm at the edge of his regular service area.  He'll do the leveling of the 6'Hx50'Lx15'W ridge and haul away the brush and gravel/clay soil, but he really isn't into bringing in topsoil and raising the front lawn level.  Well, I can get THAT done locally.  It will be 2 weeks before he can arrive though.  At least he assures me he WILL arrive to do the work.

The bad news is that I was a bit casual about finishing the garden enclosure and left some small seams open while I fussed around with getting the enclosure door  to fit (it kept getting out of square each day as the posts settled and the soil around them dried).  And then I had the tree removal crew here for several days and spend time after that cleaning up (they cleaned up, but there were still piles of ground-up tree stump chippings for me to spread out and such).  And I wasn't seeing any varmints bothering the garden.

Well, the varmint situation changed overnight several days ago.  I walked quietly into the backyard one late afternoon and caught a glimpse of a groundhog running away.  There were a few melon leaves nibbled off nearest the enclosure door, so I set up a live-trap cage in the barely-open doorway.  I didn't catch it, but there was no further damage.  So I figured it was both suspicious of the trap AND baffled about getting in otherwise.  The other open seams were way around the back of the enclosure. 

Foolish me!  I went out yesterday afternoon and found my 2 small (unripe) dwarf watermelons and 2 of my 5 (unripe) honeydew melons completely gone, and another half-eaten.  It had obviously found the backside openings!  I closed the enclosure door and set the baited cage trap closer to the path it must have taken to the back with a part of the half-eaten melon (a trapping website said to use whatever is being eaten as bait - though melons were usually best).  So melon was best for bait of both counts. 

This morning the cage trap was sprung but no groundhog.  But the bait was pulled out, so it must have reached in carefully and tripped the lever while still outside the cage enough to get free.  Well, I've never thought that varmints were exactly dumb; if they were, they would be extinct.  The idea is to use their habits against them.  I set up a "V" of upright 2"x12" boards to "guide" the groundhog to the trap.  That has helped in the past.  and I covered the cage trap with landscaping fabric to make it look more like a safe tunnel.

I'll bet it doesn't work.  But I did finally lock the enclosure door frame in place and seal the chicken wire seams around it, so that's no longer and problem.  There are still 2 more opening in corners, but it was dinnertime today and I was starving!  So I put a piece of chicken wire over the remaining melons, piled some melon leaves (which it also seems to eat) at the remaining openings (for distraction bribes) and called it a day. 

If I don't catch it by tomorrow morning, I have pieces of leftover chicken wire cut to size to seal the remaining openings.  After that, my garden area should be safe anyway. 

I still need the groundhog gone.  It will eat flowering plants too, and I can't protect everything.  In past years, a groundhog would show up in Spring, I'd trap it and relocate it.  Or find it's burrow and dump used cat litter into the hole until it fled in disgust.  But this August appearance is a surprise and I can't find the burrow (it may be in a neighbor's yard).

That melon-eating varmint has GOT to go, one way or another.

Gripe, Lather, Repeat

Yes, I've been complaining lately.  And I'm going to do it again.  It's a bit long...

Electrical -  Sometimes I can't even win using AngiesList.

1.  The first visit had a guy over to add a downstair's light and replace an upstair's light.  He did the downstair's light.  I told him to wire it directly to the upstair's light, but he insisted it was better to wire it to the downstair's switch (of a 3-way switch).  Afterwards, he show me it worked.  Later, I found it only worked from the downstairs switch.  From the middle and upper switches, the lights went on and off oppositely.  He said the big lamp I wanted to replace in the upper stairs needed some nuts to "tighten things up".  And he said the heavy replacement light (a tiffany style knockoff) would need 2 people.  He also looked at the front door motion-detectotrlight and said it need to be replaced due to rust.

2.  So I worked on the "tiffany" lamp.  I found a few nuts at Home Depot that tightened it all up fine.  Then I called the electrical folks to come back with 2 people and fix the problems.  Two guys came by.  They said the big tiffany light wiring was not to code and that it needed a "vintage lamp restorer" to redo everything.  They undid the weird opposite on/off problem so that I was back to the original top light only condition.  They begged off wiring the downstair's light directly to the upper one, saying that, since they would by installing the large tiffany light the next visit anyway, it would be better to do both parts then.  OK...  They also replaced the old motion detector with a new one I had bought.  As one guy did that, he asked about the options (when and for how long the floodlights would come on.  I told him "only when the motion detector comes on, and only for about 10 minutes".  It was daylight, but he said he covered the detector and tested it and it was working as requested,

3.  The nearest "vintage lamp restorer" was an hour away.  When I brought the tiffany lamp to him, he admired it, but said "any qualified electrician should have been able to do this work", and "you should fire them for not just doing it".  Well, I wasn't going to get in the middle of an argument that might require me to make several more hour long trips, so I had him just do the work.

4.  I retrieved the rebuilt tiffany lamp and contacted the electrical company to come and install it and also wire the downstair's light to the tiffany one as recommennded by the 2nd guys in #2.  I specifically reminded the electrical company that the previous guys had said it would take 2 people to install the heavy lamp, plus that they recommended it be wired directly to the bottom light.  Plus, that a hallway ceiling light had died and needed repair (the circular fluorescent bulb only came on halfway).

5.  Team #3 arrived.  The service manager at the electrical company had called just before then and told me that he was reducing the hourly rate to $90 per hour from $110 because of all the trouble in the work and he was sending a "best" team.  OK.  I knew there was trouble right from the start.  They would not wire the lower light to the upper one.  They hadn't brought their "28 drill bit" to get through the wall bases (and I'm not sure why that was MY problem).  But they said everything would work if they wired the bottom light to the top switch.  OK. 

Why are electricians determined not to EVER go up into an attic?  They simply refused to do it!  One guy DID go up in the attic because he was simply forced to to attach 2 screws for a support bar over the heavy tiffany lamp.  And he was pissed about doing that.  Really, he said he was.

6.  Team #3 did wire the bottom light to the top switch and it does work properly.  Both the top and bottom lights go on and off together.  But now I have a 3rd cutout of my drywall I have to repair.  If they had simply fished the wire from the bottom light to the top light. I wouldn't have had the drywall cutout to repair in the main living area.

7.  Plus, I asked them to look at the hallway light.  As they did so, there was a snap sound and a piece of plastic fell on the floor.  They said the existing fluorescent light couldn't be repaired and should be replaced.  OK.  I CAN actually do that.  I forgot to ask them to fix the settings on the motion detector to the settings I originally requested.  My fault.

8.  So I looked at the hallway light after they left to measure the size I needed to cover the unpainted part of the ceiling.  I found that the snapped piece of plastic was a part were the lamp needed to be attached.  The guy had tried to tighten the old light too hard and had broken it off.  I can now try to attach the new (very lightweight) light I bought today or I can have some electrician come out and replace the electrical junction box to allow for thew usual 2 attachment bolts to go in.

9.  And then the bill arrived.  It charged me for the same original work of installing the bottom stair's light that the first guy had charged me for, that the 2nd team had undone the bad work of, and tht the 3rd team had finally done correctly (even though not as I desired). I had to argue with them for 10 minutes about the fact that some of the work was previously paid-for .  And then, all I got was "I'll knock off half the labor hours "TO RESOLVE THIS SITUATION".  But not at the reduced hourly cost.  *I* accepted "to resolve the situation".

I MAY contact the original electrical company, try to do it myself, or contact a different electrical company.

And that is just PART of this past month's annoyances...

A.  On October 1st, I damaged my left arm ulner nerve.  That's the one that controls your little finger and half the ring finger.  It happened before.  20 years ago, I was a passenger on a car that hit a deer.  Two days later, my left 2 fingers were numb.  I thought it was carpal tunnel syndrome (I worked on a computer all day at work and sometimes at home at games).  After some awful electrical acupuncturish tests up one arm and down the other and into my neck (until I finally went into cold clammy shock and passed out), it was determined that there was a minor fracture of the 5th or 6th neck vertebrae.  The prescription was resting the neck and taking ibuprophen at double the recommended rate.  The problem went away in 4 to 6 weeks (can't recall exactly).

B.  On October 1st my computer chair fell over when I slid it off the plywood roller base and the wheels caught on the carpet.  On the same night, I had sat at my computer resting my head on my left elbow for 12 hours while engaged in a strategic computer game.  And immediately the next morning, I engaged in some rather violent shovel work (like digging up sod.  So I don't know the cause.  But I treated it the same.  Until that didn't help after 5 weeks now.

C.  I lost a filling in a tooth 7 years ago.  It hasn't bothered me.  But now there is a slight pain in the far back of my jaw in that side.  Coincidence, I hope, as it feels more like there is a chewed off fingernail bit stuck back there.  And there is a slight infrequent ear ache on that side.  But I get those infrequently too, so it could all be coincidence.

D.  But after the 3rd time my computer chair tossed me down this month (and it hasn't happened before) and I had to put the chair top on the wheeled bottom, I got pissed.  I took the parts out onto the deck and pounded them a bit.

E.  I've mentioned that the old monitor on the old PC has been acting up lately.  In randomly turns on and off.  Something wrong with the on/off button.  I took a small C clamp to the on button and it stayed on for weeks.  But lately it got worse and failed completely.  Same night the chair tipped over the 3rd time, I had to keep adjusting the C clamp every few minutes.  Then when it started going wrong  every few seconds, I disconnected it, took it out to the deck and threw it down hard.  Well, now I know what the insides of a monitor look like.

F.  It is satisfying breaking material objects that stop working (I never act out at living things of course).  Now I have a new (better) computer chair and a bigger monitor.  I expect them both to work fine for years.

G.  Now all I need to do is get my Ulner Nerve fixed so that my to left lingers don't feel numb...  And get that that hallway ceiling light replaced.  Oh yeah, my Photoshop Elements 6 disappeared when I downloaded Mac's OS Maverick...  And there is a new groundhog under the old toolshed.

More Critter Trouble

All is NOT quiet on the Garden Front!

OK, It seems I pretty much have the Grove Gang Squirrels at a stalemate.  But to review:  They started by pulling up most my corn, bean, and cucumber seedlings (but not eating them) 2 plantings.  I attached the live cage on the top of my fence (their highway to my garden).  I caught one in the live cage and dispatched it.  A second one pulled up my 3rd planting, so I covered the trellis bed with a tent of 1" chicken wire and covered my block of corn separately.  Some squirrels penetrated the mesh tent and also got at the corn again (I had uncovered it for some afternoon sun and forgot to replace it).  I then caught a 2nd squirrel and dispatched it.

In addition, I had had 2 groundhogs move in under my toolshed earlier.  The first was live trapped and relocated.  The 2nd was driven away after I filled 3 different burrow entrances with used cat litter.  I thought I was done with them for the year (in the past, they have only showed up in the Spring).

So there I was trying to catch the 3rd garden attacking squirrel, but also having fixed the spots it/they got into through the mesh tent.  I thought I only needed to catch the 3rd squirrel and then protect my developing tomatoes in another garden bed.

After catching the first 2 squirrels in just a few days, I expected to get the known 3rd and possible 4th easily.  The peanut butter bait smeared on the trip lever was working well.  However, I have since found the trap tripped daily with nothing inside.

I have figured out that its mostly my fault.  There are 2 wires that need to be set in place after the doors are set open that lock the doors shut when snapped closed.  That may be confusing; what it means is that a frantic squirrel CAN push back out through the spring-shut doors if 2 wires down lock them down.  I HAVE found a couple of times where I forgot to set the lock wires.  I know a squirrel has been in the cage because the peanut butter is licked clean.

But I may have outsmarted myself on a few other attempts.  Trying to be clever, I put a small dot of peanut butter at the front of the cage to lure the squirrel in.  I realized that when the cage was closed and no squirrel was inside, the dot of peanut butter was missing.  What probably happened was that the squirrel grabbed the front of the cage to get at the dot on peanut butter hard enough to trigger the doors.

It must have gotten a wicked strike on the head, but was able to pull itself  out.  But it keeps coming after that peanut butter!

There is also a situation after I stopped putting the dot of peanut butter on the front of the cage and the cage is closed with the trigger lever still having the big smear of peanut butter on it.  I suspect that a squirrel is jumping onto the cage just to get over it, and triggering the doors to spring closed.  I may have to attach a circle of chicken wire around the outside of the cage to encourage them to go through it. 

But I have learned to make sure the door-locking wires are in place each time lately and that the only peanut butter is sure to get them at the door trigger lever.  In fact today, I smeared the peanut butter on a small stone and set it PAST the trigger lever.  If THAT doesn't work, I will try the mesh wire surround to encourage them to go through the cage instead of jumping on it.  I expect to be successful soon.

So what's the "MORE" problem?  Well, as I was quietly walking to check the squirrel cage this evening, I surprised a HUGE FAT GROUNDHOG in the back yard.  As expected, it ran to the toolshed.  I looked around the shed at the previous burrows.  None of the previous burrow entrances had been re-dug.

I wasn't surprised at THAT.  I use scoopable cat litter and the stuff is slimy when wet and cement-like when dry.  Plus it is full of cat pee and poop!  I doubt any herbivore is going to mess around with THAT!  But I looked around carefully (it's a bit overgrown with weeds and vines) and found the new burrow.  They all seem to like the same spot (NW corner for some reason.  It was dug this morning (I check around the toolshed every day at least once).  So I went back into the garage and took out 2 plastic shopping bags of used cat litter and emptied them into the burrow entrance.  I'll be able to tell if it digs its way back out (doubtful - not one has done THAT yet) or digs a new hole elsewhere.  If neither of those happens, it either suffocated or had a panic heart attack, LOL!

One last odd observation.  As I was walking back to the house, I noticed a 3' arc of eaten clover where I saw the groundhog.  I know they like clover.  If I thought that was all they would ever eat, I would leave them be.  But I have, in the past, caught them eating my ripening heirloom tomatoes.  And I love those at least as much as Hobbits love mushrooms!

So the new groundhog has to go too.  I HOPE it leaves from the offense of the used cat litter.  But if not, I will live-cage and dispatch it too. 

Dadisms

I hope it is alright to find some slight humor in the Dadisms I get day-to-day.  I don't mean great laughs; sometimes humor is the better alternative to crying. 

1.  Dad has been seeing the progress of Tropical Storm (possibly to be Hurricane) Isaac down around Cuba via the TV reports.  WHILE I was trying to finish cooking dinner (of course, his timing is always wretched), he suddenly had urgent concerns that we should prepare for power outages.

Dad:  We need to get ready for power outages.

Mark:  Why?

Dad:  The Hurricane...

Mark:  We are not threatened by a hurricane.

Dad:  No, it will be here tonight, we have to get ready.

[Ok, now I could have gone 2 ways here, and I actually did think about it.  I could have said, "yes, I will get the candles out and and fill clean bottles with fresh water".  But I'm obsessed with reality.  So it progressed like this]...

Mark:  Dad, the hurricane isn't a hurricane yet, it is about a week away from us if it even comes NEAR us, we won't lose power, and if we DO, the food is good for a day in the freezer, and I will cook the fresh meat on the grill to save it.

Dad:  You're not listening to me, the hurricane is coming tonight and the power will be out for days.

Mark:  I'm listening to you but you're wrong.  1.  The power doesn't go out here because the cables are underground.  2.  I've lived here for 26 years and the power has never gone off for more than 2 hours, a one-off equipment failure in non-storm times.  3.  The storm is 1500 miles away, 5 days, and IF it comes through here it will only be a day of steady drizzle, which I would VERY much like.  4.  If the absolutely bizarre worst happened, I would simply put you in the front seat of the car and the cats (in PTUs) in the car and we would stay a few days out of state on our credit cards...

Dad:  But...

Mark:  Get out of the kitchen and let me finish cooking dinner!  I will deal with the Hurricane problem RIGHT after dinner!!!

Dad is getting more uncertain about where he is living.  I suppose he thinks he was in Florida for some of the discussion (but he knows Maryland for other parts).  It seems the concept of geographical distance is becoming harder for him to recall.  He really thinks the Tropical Storm Isaac is very close to us (in Maryland).  

I don't want to ignore his concerns, but when they are non-sensical and I'm trying to get all the parts of dinner cooked at the same time, I just don't HAVE time for his confusions.

2.  The groundhog sightings...  I caged a groundhog on July 17th and relocated it.  Since that time, Dad has claimed to see a groundhog in the back yard every single day.  It is always a pile of dead leaves or a dark spot on the shed foundation.  Every day, I have to walk outside and point to the spot he is convinced there is a groundhog and show him that there isn't one. 

Repeated errors in seeing groundhogs every day doesn't bother him a bit.  So when he stated AGAIN that there was a groundhog out back, I hesitated to even look.  But he said there was one running around, no doubt this time, I looked.  Yes there was. 

I set up the live cage, trapped it in an hour and relocated it later.

But here's the thing.  He said it was weird to get one just 2  days after the last one.  Um, it was 4 weeks ago.  Dad insisted it was only 2 days.  I showed him the picture from the last time (July 17/18).  He said that was the first one this year.  Dad wasn't even HERE then. 

His time-memory of current events is completely shot.  He can't remember simple things one day to the next.  I have a really hard time dealing with this.  I have a better-than-average memory for events than most people.  I have a worse-than-average about "people-things", so I'm not claiming anything special.  Meaning, I can remember buying things better than I can who I was talking to when I bought the item.  Many people have the opposite memory, and I envy them in that quite often. 

But Dad insisted I relocated a groundhog only 2 days before the last one, and it was 4 weeks...

3.  Dad gives me instructions befitting a child more and more often these last couple of weeks.  I'm not sure how to say he is "reverting to adulthood".  Parenthood of a child, I guess...  I announced the other night that I was going to bed early because I had stayed up late the night before.  He told me to make sure I "used the facilities" before I went to bed.  You tell a 5 year old that. 

When I make a meal, he sometimes asks "do you have enough for yourself"?  Well, considering the fact that I make dinners and divide them with what my grandmother used to call "the miking eye" (meaning micrometer precision) IN HIS PRESENCE, that is always a bit disturbing.

Every single night, we eat dinner and he eats at the table (because it doesn't wobble when he cuts his meat ineptly) and I eat on a TV tray so I can (briefly) watch a science DVD in peace and no "they can't know THAT" comments from Dad.  Every meal, toward the END of the meal, he always asks "Do you want more salt or more butter"?  Next week, he may be asking me if I need help cutting up my food. 

He clearly thinks of me as a child needing help.  I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't for the fact that he has always treated me that way, and I've always been the independent one of the kids...  I DO NOT understand this particular oddity on Dad's part.

*SIGH*

Its Been A Hard Week

Well, I should summarize the week...

Sunday - Ayla suddenly started extruding pus from her vulva.  I spent the afternoon and night keeping her as clean as I could.

Monday - Brought Ayla to my regular vet first thing in the morning.  He did some tests to eliminate urinary infections, then did x-rays to search for a reproductive tract problem.  He scheduled surgery for Tuesday.

Tuesday - Ayla was opened for exploratory surgery first thing in the morning.  At noon, the vet called to say that he had found the spayed uterus remnant was infected, which led him to discover her left ovary was intact.  He removed both.  Considering that the breeder's vet had done both a first and a followup spay operation, he was quite surprised!  I was very angry towards the breeder's vet.

Ayla (and I) have gone through frequent and lengthy heat cycles for 3 years.  Most times lasting for 10 days separated by 2 weeks of calm.  Occasionally, there was a whole month between heat episodes.  The news that my vet had found the cause was a matter of extreme joy.  I was thrilled.  The $800 was well worth all the trouble.

Tuesday night I picked Ayla up to give her the antibiotic, and I discovered she was dripping with red stuff all over the incision.  I assumed it was blood and brought her to an emergency pet hospital.  I was there for 2 hours.  The ER vet put a pressure bandage on her, did some tests, and decided she should see my regular vet in the morning. 

Wednesday - My vet was upset and distressed that I had had to go through all the ER stuff.  He explained that scar tissue is difficult to seal and that sometimes there is seepage.  But he apologized for not having advised my of that, and I am OK with the apology.  It DID cost me $1,000 at the ER hospital to learn that Ayla COULD have just lain on a thick towel all night.  The ER vet COULD have told me that, but he is running a business and I DID request service.  It was still pretty shoddy, though.

Anyway, my vet kept her for observation and examination all day at no charge. 

Thursday - Brought Ayla back to my vet for further observation.  He found the incision healing, not seeping, and he removed the IV catheter.  No charge, more apology, and lots of discussion.  And he gave me his home phone number in case of night time problems.

I hate the cone she has to wear, so I went out and bought an inflatable collar (XS dog collar, if you want to find one for a small cat, S for a regular size cat).  Ayla doesn't mind the inflatable collar, it even seems to make a decent pillow!

Friday - Ayla is alert and walking around, eating, and drinking.  She seems fine now, healing well with no "sera" seepage.

I spent the morning giving her lots of attention and scritching the itchy incision area that she can't get at with the inflatable collar.  She enjoyed that a LOT!

In the afternoon, I unwound by watering the veggie and flower gardens.  I have a nice system.  Stab a spading fork with a "D" handle in the ground, fit a hose nozzle in the handle (most will fit one way or another), and turn the water on for 5 full minutes at each spot.  Move the spade and repeat.  All afternoon!  Sit in a chair in the shade and drink a beer while listening to classical music on a little boom box.  Very relaxing and theraputive. 

It was 100+ outside, but I was sitting in the shade and there was a slight breeze.  There was water spraying, birds around, etc.  I NEEDED that!

Speaking of the gardens, the reason I was watering was because we are so dry here in MD.  There have been rains, but brief and hard and not much for several weeks.  How dry has it been?  The hosta bed still has dry crunchy leaves from last Fall.  They won't decompose!  Too dry.

More bad news!  A sign at the entrance to my neighborhood advises that electricity will be turned off for 5 hours August 1st!  Oh joy...  The forecast for that day is over 100 again.   I see that Verizon is digging up the neighborhood for some reason, so that must be the cause.

More bad news!  Have you ever used a garden hose and forgotten to turn the water off?  And the hose burst?  And not gone out there for 2 days?  That happened to me Tuesday.  I don't know exactly when the hose burst.  If I am lucky, it burst just before I went out and noticed.  If I am unlucky, it happened shortly after I went inside and it spewed water for 2 days.  And, of course, the water was not even spewing near any of my plants...  I will find out on the next quarterly bill.

More bad news!  Because of Ayla's apparently finally successful spay Tuesday, I contacted a radio vet show (The Animal House).  I had been a guest in June of last year discussing unsuccessfully "Twice-Spayed Ayla, and they asked for followup.  So I was scheduled for a taping Wed afternoon.  Well, Wed morning I had been up all night and morning, so I had to call to cancel (because I needed to collapse in bed).  They didn't want to reschedule for the next week, so they are just going to read the email I sent them.  I sure wish I could have been on-air to talk to them.  That would have been thrilling!  I guess I missed my 15 minutes of fame...

It will be broadcast in August and I will give details for that later.

I think it is finally safe to have "too much to drink tonight"!  And I plan to.  I just haven't decided whether it will be my favorite cheap wine (Twisted vine Zinfandel) or my own Sling recipe (1/2 oz gin, 1/2 oz pomegranate liquer, a shot of real pomegranate juice, fill up the glass with ginger ale over ice, and drink through straw).

I HAVE had worse weeks, but not often, and this one ranks way up on the list.  My baby sister died last Summer, Mom died last Fall, Skeeter died in Dec 2008, LC died in Jan 2010, I failed out of college in 1975 (I returned and graduated in 1993), and I got fired from a job because I couldn't roll tires off a truck fast enough.  All considered, I think this week places 5th.  Maybe 6th because I think at least Ayla IS finally spayed and that's good.

Well, Sadly, NOT The Finale!

It seems the groundhog wars are not over.  I looked out in the yard today to see TWO mid-size groundhogs at my flowers.  I'M INFESTED by them!  Granted, my backyard is semi-wild and rather wildlife-friendly and organic, but I didn't expect an invasion of groundhogs as a result.  And being surrounded by nice suburban expanses of lawns on 3 sides and a swamp on the other, I would have guessed any problem but groundhogs.  Where are they coming from???

But it does mean war.  And I won't feel bad when I kill them in the future.  One small family of them errantly finding a place in my yard is "touching", but waves of them is TOO MUCH!  Even with a dead groundhog on their doorstep, they won't leave!  How stupid are they?

I will be calling a trapper tomorrow to see what they offer, but in truth, I am a person not inclined to ask another to do what I won't do myself.  My only question is legality.  I'll have to call the county animal control office to see what I am allowed to do.  And decide which rules I will ignore.  I'll be damned if I will pay someone $200 to do what I can do for free..

If I have to kill more of them, I won't be as sorry as I was before.  I'M PISSED!!!  This isn't like squirrels in the attic, the groundhogs are eating my food!  It is time to fill the pond and mete out watery doom.


That doesn't mean I will enjoy it.  I won't.  I wish they would just find a better home in an empty field somewhere.  But I will be rid of them, one way or another!

Groundhog Wars, Finale

A tale of regret and sadness...  And don't read this if you are squeamish.  Groundhogs were killed.

Some of you may know that I have been fighting with a groundhog this year.  It burrowed in under my shed last Fall.  I saw it several times running back to the shed when I went out to the garden.  I got pictures of it with my GameSpy camera a few ties. 

I used to hunt.  I was good enough at it to get a deer several years in a row with bow&arrow.  I stopped when I had to field-dress a lactating doe I killed.  Milk ran out of her.  My heart wasn't in it after that.  I have generally tried to live and let live.  When deer ate all the leaves from the pole beans one year and some neighbors sicced a dog after my cat a week later, I built a 6' fence around the entire back yard.  Prevention is better than cure.

If I see an occasional possum or raccoon on the deck or in the yard, I live with it.  Just yesterday, some raccoon or snake ate all the baby robins in a nest I was watching daily.  And I don't mind what the cats catch and kill the occasional bird or mouse.  Nature is nature, and I can't stop it.  That doesn't mean I have to participate in it.  BTW, I eat meat, so I am aware of my part in killing animals for food.  They are raised to be food, and I support systems that kill them as gently as possible.

But I raise some of my own vegetable food, and I am protective about it.  Groundhogs are a problem here.  In the past, I have trapped them and released them in unoccupied fields.  I read that was illegal. So I had to resort to other means. 

I had a pond and have a Have-A-Hart trap I have used before.  A dip into the pond, a minute of confusion, a few bubbles, and they are dead.  Short of a .22 to the head (which I cannot do in a suburban neighborhood nor safely from a few inches away because of blood-spray), it is the least-sufferring way I can thing of.  They don't seem frightened, just confused,   Then "blurp" and dead.

But the pond is dry from a leak I cannot find, and with all the heavy rocks on the liner, I just haven't replaced it.  I regret that very much today...   I very much wish I had had a pond to drop her into.  It would have been very much easier on us both.

It started when I heard a noise behind the shed while I was weeding the garden.  I ran over to find 3 groundhog pups in a pile.  I had a garden fork in hand, and I used it to kill them.  In spite of her fear, Mrs Groundhog came out of her den to yell at me.  I used the garden fork to set one dead pup in the burrow hole and one in the side of the shed.

I did not enjoy it.  It was far more than slapping a mosquito or stepping on a cockroach.  It was almost like killing a fawn.  They cried.  And I cried.  I did not do physically hard work, but I was sweating terribly afterwards.  It was very upsetting.

I caught Mrs Groundhog in the Have-A-Hart trap after, and tried to release her outside the fence.  I expected her to run straight away from the house, but she ran straight around the fence back towards her den.

I hoped she would leave for a safer den after that, but she didn't.  I caught her eating my lettuce the other afternoon.  So I set the trap back up, unbaited, right in her most-observed exit point.  She was in it today.

I could have spread plastic sheeting and filled up the dry pond temorarily.  I wish I had.  But wasting that much water didn't seem good either.  People are dying from lack of water in places.  I finally decided to "shoot" her with arrows.  A small animal ought to die quickly from that. 

I held an arrow just above her and slammed down a piece of 2x4 on it as a wide hammer.  It didn't even penetrate her body.  All it did was break the nock off the back.  It took several other tries to actually stab through her.  I felt sick.  But badly wounded, she could not be released to die of infection after days.

There are some things you start that you can't stop.  When you injure an animal badly enough, you have to follow through and end it.  My Father was good enough to teach me that.  When you injure a deer fatally with an arrow, you are obligated to spend all the time needed to follow the blood trail and finish it off to stop the pain. 

I was good at that.  One drop of blood in ten feet of woodland leaves, I could find them.  Because it was only fair.  You injure it, you kill it as quickly as possible for their sake.  You kill it, you claim it and end your hunting season. Even if it is found days later and the meat is wasted.  Because it is the right thing to do IF you are going to hunt animals.

I am very sorry that Mrs Groundhog lived an hour after being stabbed with arrows.  If I could have thought of some less inhumane way of eliminating her from my garden, I would have.  I wish I had refilled the pond temporarily.  And it occurs to me now that my bathtub is bigger and deeper than the trap.  I could have drowned her quickly in there.

But I don't want to kill any more groundhogs.  Its the shed that attracts them.  So I have decided to spray herbicides all around the edges, dig up the soil after a few weeks, and install mesh wire all around it.

I don't want to have to hurt another poor wild animal for just trying to live as best it can.  Life is hard enough.  Tangling with humans shouldn't be part of that.  I don't want to have to kill another Mrs Groundhog again. 

I an feeling rather horrible tonight.  I don't want to feel that way again ever...

Cavebear

Groundhog Wars

If you are sqeamish, don't read further.  I don't mean that I am showing bad pictures (there are none).  But I am fighting with groundhogs that damage my garden.  I mean, they destroy my food. 

Today, while I was weeding the garden, I heard an odd thrashing noise nearby the fence and old toolshed where a groundhog had taken up residence.  I had let Ayla out and feared she had tangled with the groundhog.  She is, in some ways, stupidly fearless.The only tool I had on the way was a gardening spade.  I grabbed it and ran toward the noise. 

I may also be stupidly fearless.

When I got to the fence, I saw the groundhog run into the burrow under the old toolshed.  I have GOT to make that space inaccessible!  But I also sawsomethng else.  3 groundhog pups huddled together 20' away from the burrow.

2nd Warning:  Violence ahead...


There I was with a garden spade, expecting to protect my cat from an adult groundhog.  What I found was future garden-destroying varmint pups.  I had the garden fork in hand.  They had no flight instincts.  I dispatched them as quickly as possible.  I didn't like it, but I did it.  Nothing needs be said further about that.

I did not enjoy it.  But I thought it was necessary.  Every year when a groundhog lives under the toolshed, my crops are ruined.  That is my food.  Last year, they ate all my cukes and most of my bean plants.  I am determined to drive the adult away.

I scooped up one dead pup and put it in the entrance burrow.  I moved a barrier board out of the way enough to place a second dead pup in there.  If that doesn't make Mom Groundhog leave the property, I will take further measures.  I am growing crops for ME, not her.

If I had a 10 acre farm and lost 100 sq ft to a groundhog, I wouldn't worry too much.  But last year, I lost every cuke and bean.  Between my organic safe food and the groundhogs, they are going to lose every time.  I have been tolerant for years, but the tolerance has ended. 

Mrs. Groundhog will die next!  And I will bury mesh wire 18" deep all around the shed to prevent any new ones coming back in the future!

 ----------------------

When I was 14, my dad took my brother and I out to a huge field to "hunt" groundhogs.  He had a whistle that made them stand up to look around for danger.  Toward twilight, he whistled at them again.  One stood up a long distance away. 

I laid down for a careful shot.  Dad laughed and said I couldn't aim that well.  I pulled the trigger and the groundhog vanished.  He said I scared him with the shot.  I said I got him.  I was insistent enough to make him walk with me to the spot.

There was the dead groundhog.  I nailed him right between the eyes.  He brought the dead ground hog home an made a stew of it.  Trust me, it doesn't taste like chicken.  He did it because he was being mean.  I made him look wrong.

I hate groundhogs...

Yard Wildlife

I bought a wildlife camera (GameSpy) in April and got some pictures, but forgot to post them as promised.  Since Iza ran into the groundhog (which was caught in a live trap) recently, I remembered the GameSpy pictures.

There is more wildlife living under my toolshed than I thought!  The shed is a foot above ground level, so there is lots of room underneath.

Some of the pictures don't come out very well.  I need to read about the autoflash feature more carefully.   This is a rabbit.

Here is the groundhog that I knew I had there, emerging from the entrance.

 Here is the best picture I got of it.

Seeing a possum emerge from the same hole surprised me!

The groundhog emerged again soon after.

I'm sure they don't share the same burrow, but they do share the access hole to below the shed floor.  The possum probably just sleeps in a corner under the shed.  I have most of the rest of the shed access blocked by boards.  But apparently the groundhog also tunneled through the compost bin.  I surprised it once and it dove in there and vanished.