Apropos of Nothing v.11

Just saw this - a little late. But at least Internet Brands has a sense of humor:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1084848/

that was funny. good joke.

Laurie, I haven't read a challenging novel like that in quite some time - you may have convinced me!

We were supposed to have a little sun today but that didn't work out so well. Instead we got clouds and drizzle. What's up with that?

Ditto. I spent the entire afternoon outside anyway, in the drizzle, planting 24 asparagus plants. At least I had the spot mostly prepared with compost and lime dug in, so all I had to accomplish today was digging the trenches and making the mounds to drape the roots over. I went through 2 pairs of gloves on this project since they got soaked and my hands were cold enough already that I didn't want to put wet muddy gloves back on after coming in to warm up partway through.

Hello murmur - nice to see you here. Hope you enjoy the book. A real favourite with me.

i'm just buzzing through to check on a plant order - so taken with the daylilies (Julies?) I tracked down a grower here and have ordered half a dozen. But the day is sooooooo gorgeous, at last, that I am scooting back out to get the veg beds ready for rotavating - this really marks the beginning of spring for me! Love my red rotavator! Brmmmmm.

Grrr more squirrels in my attic. Has anyone else had to deal with this problem?

At least you don't have bats in your belfry. What is a belfry, anyway?

We had squirrels store their nuts in our beds in the shop loft. That was not a nice surprise.

I usually have bats in my garage (I don't think that's a belfry!), though I put a bat house up last summer after I kept finding dead baby bats in the garage. I'm hoping they won't even want to nest in the garage this year as I'm keeping my car in there now and there's lots of activity all the time.

A belfey is a bell tower I think. We have bats under our roof tiles. I find dead ones once in awhile. They look like they have been torn apart. We had chipmunks that put a hole through the wood under the eaves and had five babies.

One of my favorite evening treats is to sit on the back deck about dusk with a glass of wine, listen to the last calls of the birds, and then watch the bats flit about. A regular tradition for my granddaughter and I.

I love the bats as well and was saddened at finding so many dead babies last year - it hadn't happened before, but there was so much going on in the garage with my clearing it out, etc., that the parents may have deserted them. I put the bat house as close as I could to where they might have been flying in and out and its up high and warm, like I read they like. Here's hoping!

I need more. I live near a wetland and than means mosquitos and some nasty tiny little thing that you don't feel but whose bit is much worse than a mosquito bite.

I only see a single bat flit about at dusk every now and then.

Loosely related to this topic - I saw a pileated woodpecker this morning standing on a curb eating something out of the grass . . .

I see lots of Hairies and Downies, but very rarely a pileated . . . how cool!

They are so pretty and recently have been drumming up business with the ladies by pounding on the trees. ^_^

My neighbor and I joke about our Woodpecker couple. She's a mile away up at the top of my road.

I told her last summer that I had a pair hanging out around the yard. She said, "Oh, so that's where my woodpeckers are."

Turns out that they have a pretty huge territory. We don't own them, they own us!!

Typically, they do hang out at her place and actually eat out of her feeders.

Sahara wants to catch one in the worst way. She'll run across the property as though she things it will drop at any minute. Sparrows, finches, juncos, chickadees . . . none of these interest her. But crows and woodpeckers are just the size of the prey she wants . . . haha.

Up close, though, they are kinda freakish looking with big heads and square "shoulders".

We've had a young woodpecker being taught the ropes by its parent for the last month or so - the little guy was quite shy at first to fly from the porch post to the suet feeder (which crosses my den window), but its how much braver and I haven't seen the big one around nearly as often. That's one of the beauties of working from home.

I'm impressed that you can get any work done with so much going on outside your window!

I work less than half time, maybe closer to quarter time. I'd rather not work at all, and look forward to hanging up my keyboard one of these days.

A "wildlife remover" is coming next Tuesday to trap the squirrels that have made my attic their home. It is going to be expensive but I don't want to climb up on the roof. I don't know if this is true or not but the guy said I have to make the choice of having them release the squirrels from the traps in the area where they were caught, or have them euthanized. It is going to take about a week to trap them all and of course I don't want them released in my yard because I have to wait until they are all trapped before I can have their entry point closed up. So what am I supposed to do - send them to their death? The guy said that's the law so I'm going to check on that tomorrow.

There may be laws against transporting them to another area.

If he's trapping them, then they should be able to close up the entry point before releasing them in the same area. There's no reason for the entry point to remain open if they're not using it and using the traps instead.

I guess you could always rent a big cage and have the guy put them in there until he's finished.

If they do make you keep the entry open, I wonder if you could put a towel soaked in cat or dog urine right by the entry to make it a scary place. Or put one of those ultrasonic devices right there to make it not such a good area for them to live in.

The trick is to make sure there are none still in there - that's why it has to remain open. I could certainly supply dog-urine-soaked rags!

But even if they're trapping and euthanising - there's still a chance that more will enter until they close it up. It's not like there aren't quite a few around.

There's this guy - I'm a "fan" of his on Facebook. He's for humane pest control. Maybe he has some answers on his site.

http://www.totalwildlifecontrol.com/

You guys are funny. Getting "rid of" requires euthanasia. You don't have places in the city to put them.

Steve, this isn't about being practical. This is about not being the person to send the critters to their death just because they got into your attic. I think that's reasonable. Just because squirrels aren't domesticated animals that live with humans doesn't mean that they aren't valuable creatures. :-/

This message was edited Apr 8, 2010 11:46 PM

Katie59 the wild animal guy said that squirrels are territorial and other squirrels that are not a part of the "attic group" will stay away, at least until the group is out. There will be enough time to get the entry sealed up. Now, this is what he's telling me and I'm getting the same story from the others I've called. And frankly, at this point, I am no lover of these creatures. Our neighborhood is overrun and many of us are having problems. Steve, you're right - we don't have places in the city to put them. I just don't like to be faced with this decision. If I am honest with myself I have to admit that I don't care if they die. BUT that changes my perception of myself as a compassionate and animal-loving person.

I keep remembering a line from Sex & The City, that described squirrels as "rats with better outfits".

I feel badly for anyone who has a pest that is so cute. We had a couple of chipmonks here, they were soooo cute. Now I do understand they are big garden problems but I don't know if I could kill something so cute. They went away, thank goodness so I did not have a problem. I have no issues with killing moles and gophers, you cannot garden with those things and I don't want them in my yard.

I am posting mostly because I came home from a trip and stopped at a wholesale nursery supply place. A guy came up to me and gave me this card for a nursery and said they had great plants and are going out of business. Just my thing, however I don't live close enough to even go look. So here it is

Rivershore Nursery
30754 Peach Cove Road
West Linn, OR
503 557-9185

Hope someone goes and gets some real cool plants.

Okay, Judi. Glad you've made your decision. Just trying to be supportive of your position . . .

I actually have not made a decision - I keep going back and forth. Maybe they will let me take the traps out to the forest and release them there. I'm going to check on that.

Mother Nature keeps trying to cull the weak to keep the population down and we keep saving the weak, so it's inevitable that we're going to run out of room eventually.

There may not be room for squirrels, but there's no room for people and there's no room for dogs and there's no room for cats either. I guess it's just all in your perspective. I guess we just have to decide which animals we deem worthy and which we don't.

My problem is that with my garden, I am creating an ideal environment for certain species to populate at higher levels than would normally be possible.The voles, for example, have ample food supply provided by my fruit and vegetable plants, softened earth to dig their burrows in, and plenty of ground-cover to hide from any natural predators like the owls in the adjacent wooded property. Raccoons from those woods routinely raid my strawberries and apples, and they periodically get into the neighbor's chicken coop and do dastardly harm to the birds. I also have a pair of ravens plus numerous crows who yank up newly sprouted peas and corn and dig in my compost heap for goodies. The ravens also steal whole eggs from the chicken yard and drop them on my garden boards to crack.

I kind of like the ravens, but that is partly because there are only 2 and I think they must be territorial because others do not congregate here. Besides, I can fairly easily protect the new seedlings until they are big enough not to be destroyed. The raccoons are usually only here at night and I don't begrudge them some apples. However, the young coon that devastated my strawberries on a nightly basis last year had to go. We trapped it live (lunging and hissing in the cage the next morning) and released it at the DNR land, though probably it was not legal to move it to another area from what I hear about the squirrel removal rules. The voles are the creature that is totally out of control. I have trapped to kill, I admit, when I realized the level of destruction was too much just to take in stride...newly planted fruit trees keeling over from root chewing, lilies and irises disappeared, pumpkins gnawed...and many more plants devoid of all root systems.

You've really captured well, Holly, what the dilemma is.

Oh Holly you put it so well. I am certainly willing to live with, and welcome, many creatures into my garden. Squirrels are everywhere, spiders thrive here, and I don't begrudge a raccoon or two digging in my compost. But squirrels in your attic can damage your home, and I'm not that accommodating! And slugs are not welcome, either.

It is sad to have to make that decision. But growing up on a farm you learn that some things just have to go. Like my dog who killed chickens and excess kittens. I cried about it but couldn't do anything about it.

This message was edited Apr 9, 2010 1:24 PM

I have been working with the city of Wrangell for over 3 years about the ferrell cat population and after depleating the concerned citizens of Wrangell of allthe $ they have the population continues to soar. I therefore have recommended capture and euthanasia of the remaining ones not neutered and spayed. Leaving the altered ones in place should resolve the population issue. This has been a controversial issue and I suffer the emotions of regret of people who dislodge their kittens when they don't take proper steps to do the work that is needed. I have had to deal with this issue all of my 39 years of medicine. So I too live with the conflict of population over growth.

I agree - welcome those of interest, live with what you can, negotiate where possible, and then accept that you too have a right to be comfortable.

On the fun side of critters - this year we have an albino pheasant cock - completely white except for the startling ring of brillant cherry red and sapphire blue around his eyes. This bird has decided that he owns our garden and two upper fields - he also goes visiting the neighbours when our snacks run out, and gets scolded for walking in the road (the entire neighbourhood). He is amazing, and just absolutely at home. Yesterday I was bringing in the laundry, and saw Persil (named after a whiter-than-white brand of washing powder) walk down the path, slowed for the steps as if he was sussing out a plan, and than slyly walk over to the kitchen door to have a peep in - scared himself and rushed away. I'm sure it will not be long before we find him inside, feet up and channel hopping. they can be funny.

"I agree - welcome those of interest, live with what you can, negotiate where possible, and then accept that you too have a right to be comfortable."
Laurie, I apply that to people as well!

Funny story about Persil. A children's book in the making?

Just thinking about how cute the illustrations would be...