At War With Nature

I have officially declared war on nature! It's a war I know I can't win, but none the less it has to be fought. Until now I have tolerated the deer, squirrels, and turkeys with mild indifference, but nature has dealt me the ultimate insult! A gopher. Yes, a gopher. He is burrowing into my new lawn, undermining the structure, munching on the roots and pushing up mounds of unsightly dirt.

I played around with this little creature, thinking I could drown him out. I figure that drowning is a fairly natural death for creatures that live their entire existence in holes in the ground. I mean with rain, irrigation, melting snow, this little feller has probably faced that terror before. He refused to take the easy way, so no more now I am getting tough. I went down to the old shed and rummaged around a while and found five old gopher traps.

I am not a stranger to gopher traps. When I was about 13 or 14 I probably trapped more gophers than anyone south of the crick. We have an alfalfa field of about fourteen acres. Unchecked, gophers will plow a field for you about every other year. Of course if you are trying to raise hay, you don't want it plowed up. Dad paid me fifty cents per gopher, and was pretty upset if I didn't catch at least one or two per day. When I had trapped all winter, he owed me a little over $50.00, which he paid off with a scope for my Savage model 99 lever action .243.

Of the five traps I found, only one was workable. The other four were in various stages of disrepair. One is enough though and with the help of some pliers, I bent it into reasonable shape and set it in the gopher hole. That little sucker is in for a surprise when he comes up to see who opened his door!

Lest you think I am fighting this war on only one front, let me continue. Saturday I spent a good part of the day planting some fruit trees. We have decided that eight trees is a reasonable number for a retired person's orchard. I have Fuji and Jonathan apple, two Hale Haven peach, one Tilton apricot and one Bing cherry. I am still looking to purchase a Bartlet pear and for the last one I world really like to find one of those plumb trees that has huge deep red plumbs.

Sorry, I digress... this morning when I went out to water the trees a deer had been chewing on Johnathan! I had placed some net wire rings around the trees to keep the deer away from the bark, which they love to rub with their horns, but eat the leaves? It's not like little John is the only apple tree in the valley. Not too far to the northwest are some of the largest orchards around. Do yo think they just saw this little tender suckling tree and decided to sample it? I think not, I think they are just looking for ways to irritate me. Especially since I put the electric fence around the back yard and disturbed their daily migration route. They won't soon forgive me for that. I'd really like to see the look on their face when their nose touches that electric wire!
I am not one to go to war unprepared. I did my research on the Internet and a terribly expensive study done by some university, in Iowa I think it was, showed that hanging Dial hand soap was as good a deterrent as any other remedy, commercial or homemade. So I have sent Ellie after a dozen bars of soap and some netting to tie them up in. We'll see how that works. I have tried sitting on the front porch and shooting them with a BB gun but they just sneak back after dark. It is fun though, watching them jump when that little BB stings them, especially if I pump it up about 20 times!

The turkeys have pulled back for a while. Some say it is because they are nesting. I think they are just planning their next assault. Pretty soon they will show up around here with a whole bunch of new young recruits, scratching and pecking worse than ever. I'm thinking of getting a robotic dog that barks when it senses their presence, but I dislike barking dogs more than turkeys.

Squirrels are not that aggressive, and they usually don't attack in numbers. They usually send an advance scout to sample my English Daisies. If the scout gets back successfully he may bring a few more with him. It's funny how they can sort through all the weeds in my wild flower garden and eat only the flowers. I have found out a sniper rifle is quite effective against these little buggers. If I detect an advance scout, and can sneak out the door and get in a position so that I am not going to shoot the house, shop, barns, horses, the neighbor's house, barns or cattle, that bushy tailed sneak will be history.

I will not take time to elaborate on the weeds, box elder bugs, ants, mourning doves that keep kamikaze diving into our windows, hornets, raccoons, skunks, coyotes or foxes. I figure within a few years I will be a seasoned veteran in this war and probably available for hire as a mercenary in distant places, perhaps as far away as the other side of the crick!