The Farm Vermin Saga Goes On

In the past the racoons have been the bane to our chicken's existence.  Over the past few years we have gradually cleaned out the racoons in the area.  Lately I have found that screaming at them like a crazy person keeps them away for an indefinite period of time.

We always have a couple times a year when we smell skunks checking out the place.  They never stick around to our relief.  This year I have opossums.  Once in a while when I go to feed the animals at night there will be a opossum in the barn.  By the time I can get armed they escape.

The other night an interesting thing happened.  When I close the chickens in the coop for the night I count them.  As can be seen in the pictures below there are always two on the ladder type roost and eight on or in the nesting boxes.  I am wearing a head lamp with a narrow beam so I turn toward the two chickens then the other way for the 8.  When I counted the two then swung around to tally the others something in the back of my mind triggered.  "Wait, something didn't look right with the two chickens."  So I swing the light back around and there is a tail sticking straight out next to the wall right next to the chicken.  There right next to the chicken is a opossum tail.

So I ran out to the wood shed next to the barn and grabbed a small piece of firewood.  When I got back in the coop it was still there.  The chicken next to it didn't look right.  I feared the worst.  I shoved the chicken to the side and it was okay.  I gave the opossum a whack with the stick.  It hit the ground and lay still.  The oldest trick in the opossum play book is to play dead.  I gave him a couple more to the cranium.  He did the running in place like I'm dying.  I carefully carried him to the dead varmint disposal place.  I didn't want the playing dead, that is hopefully really dead opossum to swing around and bite me while carrying it by the tail.

I am hoping that this rid us of another free loading varmint.  A couple nights ago, when I went to feed the animals, there was a opossum in the barn...  Was it really dead or just using the old trick?  I think we're going to have to start using the live animal trap to be sure of the ultimate demise.  Dang chickens.

I Had a Vacation

The boys and I had a great time! We had cool nights and sunny days that weren't too hot. We busted so many caps that it was starting to become commonplace. We spent one evening and half of a day shooting ground squirrels. We used .22 rifles and the shooting was from 15 to over 50 yards.

Before our trip I got a wild hair to make "shooting pads." I had seen several shooting supply places selling them and thought they might be handy. They can be used for sleeping pads at night then employed for shooting during the day, on this trip at least. I got 1000 denier olive and digital camo nylon material, some olive drab upholstery thread, heavy duty snaps and 3/4" closed cell foam. They are about 28 inches wide and 6 feet long with a large pocket. The pads are the most useful when shooting prone. Sometimes we would use one and all three of us would sit next to each other shooting.

We got to see my old boss from Pierce, Tom, who is now working for Henderson Logging. We had the dogs with us which made for another level of complexity in managing the troops and logistics. The little dog doesn't like the shooting so we had to give him a place to go when the fireworks started. The big dog doesn't care either way.

When we got to Promise where we spent 3 nights and 4 days we set up can and got all comfy. We spent a lot of time shooting bull frog polly wogs. The theory is that the big polly-wogs are eating the fish eggs so the resident brook trout population is declining. We had to contain ourselves a bit due to three pairs of Canadian geese with goslings were around the pond.

We did one or two hikes each day. In the evenings after dinner we would move out of our camp under the pine trees and sit on the edge of a big meadow with a view of a canyon and read John Brown Jr. books. We read about plants and survuval skills relating to the area we were in.

We saw 4 rattle snakes. We killed one and kept his skin and rattle. It was a first for me to skin a snake so that was interesting. One of the snakes we saw was a Grand-daddy. He was about three-and-a-half feet long and had a bout 4 inch rattles. The locals and the lads wanted me to kill them all but we only took one.

On Sunday the rule is no killing. We spent time padlling around the pond in my Father's Day, trail boat. It worked great. We found a floating nest with 8 eggs in it. I think it belongs to the coots we saw around the pond. I did a shooting drill with the boys by setting up a target (rock) and starting shooting at it at 25 yards. After being able to consistently hit it we would move back 5 yards. Their limit is about 50 yards. We worked clear out to 75 yards but that was too far. They were shooting prone with a bi-pod using their 10/22's.

One day we were shooting at the pond and the little dog, Chewie had headed back to camp. After awhile the big dog made a growl toward camp but we couldn't see anything. A few minutes later the big do jumped up and barked. This time here came Chewie with the doe chasing him. The were both trotting along. It was pretty funny. We saw a few deer. We saw three or four bucks. They are growing new antlers so they are just fuzzy stumps.

Where we were camped the whole area was carpeted with wild flowers. It was pretty idyllic. We drove to the metropolis of Troy Oregon one day to get ice cream and see the sights. It is a town of about 30-50 people.

I got my 300 Whisper sighted in while we were there. It is a fun shooter. The youngest and I worked on figuring the elevations at about 100 and 200 yards. It shoots a 200 grain HPBT bullet at less than 1000 FPS. After I found the hold over at approx 100 yards I shot two shots within 3/4 inch of each other.

I took the guys to a place I had run across a den of coyotes once a few years back. There was some digging around it and looked like maybe it was active. No one was home though. We hiked through a gully and sat under a tree on the other side. I spotted something that looked out of place back in the field by the coyote den. I got out the binoculars and it was a half size coyote. I only had my 3" 44 mag. Hey what the heck, why not sling some lead. It was over 100 yards and I haven't shot that gun at longer ranges so I did a little hold over and shot right over him. He didn't move. Obviously a young one. I held right on for elevation and shot right next too him. That got his attention and he skiddadled.

Sunday we went to town visit with our friends and spend the night. Monday morning we ran back out to see if we could get a few more squirrels. It was turning out to be a hot day and the lads wilted. I think it was more from being tired than hot. We got out of town and on the road at noon. We can make the trip in 5 hours with a little lunch stop in there. It was really tough to come back to work. DMP