Soil Burrowing Rodents...

I've added a few more pictures to the album. Some of the pictures are of visitors in our yard. Yep, GOPHERS!!! Our awesome neighbor, Al, has been mentoring California City Boy Carl on the life of country gardening. Carl told Al about the gopher problem, Al came over with his traps, showed Carl how to set them and covered it up. Now the waiting... SNAP!!! Carl & Calista checked the trap a couple of hours later and VIOLA a (semi) dead gopher. It was still breathing, barely. Al was outside and offered his pellet gun (he keeps it on the back decking to scare the birds from his garden). Carl & Calista put the little guy out of it's misery. Calista came running in the house to let me know that Daddy killed the cute little gopher. (Of course, she couldn't avert her eyes.) He put it back in the hole and covered it up to discourage anymore burrowing rodents. It discouraged them all right, from the front 1/2 acre. Now, there are more little gopher mounds in the pasture out back. GREAT! They're creating a monster. Carl of course, is coming up with all these ideas to rid the yard of these little, poor defenseless, gophers. (with the same intensity as crabbing) He's put out the box traps a couple of times with no luck. The pictures of the trap and setting it: The girls and I dug down one of the mounds and found the hole. Carl set the trap and covered it. We came out later and saw that the trap was sprung. We were excited, I of course had the camera in hand, the girls were kept back, just in case. Carl lifted the trap up and darn it, NO GOPHER. The rodent out smarted us. This little sassy guy pushed the dirt in the trap and tripped it. So, we replanted the trap and will see what happens in the morning. (i guess we caught Carl's hunting fever as well) I'll update you next time...

Loves...