Posted on 09/06/2013 11:58:59 AM PDT by greeneyes
Good luck. Traps worked great the first year we used them. Then we caught a coon that was too big for the trap. Now half the time the trap doesn’t trip, and the squirrel gets away.
The other trap still works pretty well. We caught 2 coons so far this year. Last year we caught a bunch of possums. Squirrels have not really been a success this year.
our hometown had a dog racing track, so there was an abundance of greyhounds up for adoption. I’ve never had one though.
I caught 17 possums two years ago. And two raccoons. I have a possum between my bedroom wall, and the shower pipes. I only like to set the trap when it's the night before garbage day.
I have caught raccoons before, and if you don't dispatch them right away, I've had them chirp and call their buddies who figure out how to open the hav-a-hart trap.
Or you go out to dispatch one, and the buddy raccoons, growl and won't run away.. I think I have a stinking raccoon in my eaves..tore the endcaps off one end, and moved in, then tore the one off at the other end, I guess so he'd have a front door and a back door.
I opened a new roll of net, and with this new one and old net, covered everything out there. The Italian squash grew so much last night, I put the rest of the rings on that support so the net wouldn't touch the top of the plant. I wonder how the tendrils on that plant know to wrap around those rings because that is what they are doing to hold that plant up.
sockmonkey, I picked up Mr. Stevia plant and put him so he would be under the net. I wonder if a squirrel would eat those sugar leaves? Didn't want to chance it, so covered it with the net.
I have to plant today. Will do that inside as the humidity is terrible this morning.
OH, YESTERDAY, I SAW A HUMMINGBIRD stop on the blooming Lantana for about one second and take off again. That is super special. Maybe he/she will tell his/her friends it is here.
Before this day is over, I'm planting all the lettuce and strawberries. Got all the potting soil mix out of the car trunk plus the pots out and it's all in the house. Had to knock out a cap in the bottom of the planting big bowels for the strawberries - took a hammer and screwdriver to knock them out.
Any kind of gardening takes a lot of time - I think you will all agree. Maybe it will get better after it's all set up with containers and grow bags and potting soil is in them. I'll have the refresher ingredients figured out for potting soil in a few days or sooner.
You have active and agressive critters. We don’t have any home invaders—yet. We just take the critters out about 10 or 15 miles and dump them in the forest on our land out north of town.
I didn’t know racoons would come and figure out the traps. Yikes!!!
Gardening does take a lot of time. That’s why I pick the easiest methods, and if something doesn’t do well here without a lot of babying, then I just forget about it, and plant something that is not so picky.
Humidity here has been really bad last several days. The guys out on the job actually got chills. That’s about 2 symptoms away from heat stroke. One of them had to get into the truck and run the airconditioner for a while to recover—he was pretty close to the last straw.
They’re wonderful dogs. Sweet, goofy, affectionate and devoted.
That would be a great solution to our problem, but we live in a rocky area, which is why all of our gardens are composed of loads of topsoil dumped on the yard. I can’t get a shovel into anyplace but these beds. After we realized last summer that a bear was visiting our yard daily, we gave up on composting. It’s just not worth it.
The onions were only 1 thin thing in each cup that looks like a piece of thin grass and I mean thin. I'm not planting those, will dump them and I don't like dumping a veggie but they are the pits, don't think they would develop so won't waste potting soil mix on them.
Don't know if the Zinnias will make it to adult by winter. They are an experiment, actually, all the plants are experiments since this is my first time and these food plants were on the Houston fall garden list so I did it.
I had to bend and stoop too much planting the strawberries, and was glad when that was over as I had bunch of pain in back and lower back and had to be outside for some of that and sweat was pouring off me. Texas sun and humidity is just terrible but if I can't do this, I wouldn't have any fresh food if the SHTF. Have to test my limits along with everything else to grow food plants.
I need a “house boy”. Also need a colonial big house with servants but that isn't going to happen. My life sucks, does yours? Mine really doesn't suck and I'm thankful I'm still here and can function. :o)
I would like a cook, though, so I don't have to think about fixing food. I've begged Johnny to come be my cook, but he won't do it. He'd have to wear “some” clothes, and he won't do that, either. He's the most “gone Galt” I know. If you don't know who John Galt is, the below link will tell you without having to read the very long book by Ayn Rand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt
I’ve never composted paper, so I found this on “Gardens Alive”
Q. I’m a devoted fan of your show looking for composting advice. Many gardening websites recommend adding shredded paper to your compost pile. I’m concerned that the ink on printed paper contains chemicals, and I won’t have a truly organic compost come next spring. So should I add paper? Not add paper? Help!
-—Anne in Doylestown, PA
A. Unfortunately, many people who give composting advice have never actually done it, are not thinking their recommendations through, or both. I’ve composted for 25 years, tend to think things through maybe too much, and don’t like the idea of composting paper for many reasons.
Paper is one of the most easily recycled materials in today’s enlightened world. Virtually everyone has an easy way to get old newspapers, magazines and mixed paper into a stream where it gets turned into more paper, tissues, toilet paper or some other essential element of modern society, thus reducing the need for the raw material needed to make virgin paper (otherwise known as ‘trees’).
While some modern inks (like the soy-based inks that have become popular in newspaper printing) are fairly innocuous, inks that are made for some other purposes still use petroleum and metals in their manufacture. (A good example is slick paper, where soy inks dry too slowly to be practical.) In addition, some paper itself has been bleached with chlorine, a particularly nasty player whose breakdown produces dangerous dioxins.
Most importantly, there is little to no nutrition left in processed paper, and it won’t add much—if any—fertilizing or disease-preventing power to the finished product. That’s why I’m always yelling at allayouse to collect and shred massive amounts of fall leaves; shredded leaves make the finest disease-preventing, soil-enhancing, plant-feeding compost. If you have a compost pile where the predominant “brown materials” are paper instead of leaves, you are creating the equivalent of a heavily-processed artificial fast food for your plants. Compost made with shredded leaves is minimally processed, high quality slow food—and it’s local too!
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I hear you. :) I think that many of us that garden dream big over the winter, which is one of the reasons I had so many packets of years-old basil seeds this season!
/johnny
Yah, I would not want a bear either. Still you can probably compost some stuff maybe, like wheat stalks, rye grass, maybe corn stalks, tree leaves that they wouldn’t be so attracted to.
paper/cardboard: Okay, I won’t cut it up for the composter but would you come and carry all these boxes about 35 yards to the big dumpster here? It will take two trips of walking it down there in this heat even if I wait until the sun goes down. I sure need that “house boy” I want.
I wonder if you think any of these food plants are going to make it to produce food before the first snow storm here? OK, we don’t have snow storms but do you think they will produce before it’s too cold here or do you think I’m wasting my time and body to do this?
The sesame plant is getting close to 4 feet tall and looks fine and healthy but no sesame pods are anywhere to be seen growing.
I’d like to have a maid, butler, cook, housekeeper, and gardener. That should be enough to be able to delegate all the mundane chores to.LOL
Yes my dreams always exceed the body’s out put ability.LOL
/johnny
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