Odds and ends

Well, finally the weather is getting better. Its about time. We even had one day that was good enough that I was able to roll the plane out to see if I still remembered how to fly. I was a bit rusty, but each landing was a bit better. When I filled out my log book, I discovered that I had last flown 5.5 months ago. I had dedicated all my time to training Hope. It was actually worth it. She still shows signs of being an exceptional hunting Hawk.

The full Moon sometimes is just beautiful when it rises.

I have been having trouble with a Raccoon for the last couple of months. The first problem was in January, I think. I got angry enough that I gathered up the hens and roosters that I wanted to keep and penned them all up in the enclosed chicken pen. I had 6 extra Roosters that I left out as bait.

I set traps, both live and "dog Proof" traps around the areas that the thief would generally use. All to no avail. For three weeks apparently the varmint did not come around again. Finally one frosty morning I see a Raccoon track on the ice of the drinking water tub. I re baited the traps again. Nothing, for at least three weeks again. The weather got a lot better and I decided to not close up the Roosters again believing that with the better weather the critter was finally going to stay at home across the road.

Just in case I was wrong, I put a live trap inside the chicken house trap door, so that the entrance would appear open but the critter would have to go through the trap to get inside.

 For three weeks nothing happened, but I did catch the fattest Pack Rat that I have ever seen. I took him out for Josie to play with, but he was so big that Josie just grabbed him and shook him to death as soon as his feet hit the ground.

Three days ago I noticed that two of the Roosters were missing. I checked around and only found a few tail feathers and one small blood spot outside the chicken house. I decided that I would put out a couple of trail cams to see if I could see what he was doing. He had been ignoring my live trap totally.

I set three Dog proof traps around the Chicken house and set a steel trap at the Chicken pen. I used a cinnamon roll for the bait on the trigger and around the area in front. The traps are designed strictly for Raccoons. They take advantage of the tendency of the Coons to use their front feet to grab their food. The trap is basically a pipe with a "U" shaped piece of metal to hold the Coon. Its nice as the problem of catching Cats or Dogs is non existent.

The next morning I removed the card from the cameras, and found that one of the camera's had a flash on it rather than Infrared, and I got a shot of the Coons butt as he scurried off. Nothing was touched. The next night the one camera without the flash was the only one that I put out. It showed a Jack Rabbit and a Bunny ( Brush Bunny) enjoying the Cinnamon roll. I had sacrificed all the rolls that I was interested in and was looking for something else to use for bait. I finally decided on  Honey Nut Cheerio's for last nights bait.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to look out the windows and I was overjoyed to have finally caught the Bastard. He was a pretty big Boar Raccoon, weighing about 30 pounds. I know from experience that he could hold two chickens at once. Perhaps now things will settle down a bit.

The Coon had gotten into the live trap, and triggered it, but he was so big that his butt stopped the door from totally closing, and he had backed out of the trap. I guess that he then decided to sample the Cheerios. I won't miss him at all.