R.I.P. Rocky

Email this morning from the Ohio DNR (no, no NOT Do Not Resuscitate - the other one: Dept. of Natural Resources).

Alison et all, you were right.

Poor thing.  An unfortunate situation to say the least.

I think where it may have forced in the corner of a screen upstairs and will reinforce both vent windows with 1/2" hardware cloth.

*sigh*

Who knew we had flying squirrels?   Not me, that's for sure.

Regrets to the varmint population.

And, of course,  condolences to moose....

Pre-dawn scare!!

At 4:47 this morning I was awoken from a sound sleep when something in the attic over my head began thumping, rattling and beating the floorboards.  PANIC!

My heart jumped, adrenalin rushed, and, though I was in a hurry,  I fumbled around in the dark for my slippers.  On the way upstairs I grabbed a flashlight even though I was turning on all the lights along the way.

I've caught mice in the attic before (hence the ever-present baited snap traps).

But at NO time did anything make the god-awful noise that woke me (that I could still hear coming from the attic)!

When I ran into the storage/attic part of the 2nd floor, I expected a very large mouse.

What I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.

WTF is THAT?

SOMEthing BIG had it's nose and front paw snapped in a little mousetrap and was beating the floorboards with it.  Holy crap.

Quickly, still confused, but afraid it would free itself, I stomped the thing repeatedly on the head until it was dead.  (Now, wasn't I glad I'd taken a moment to PUT ON my HARD SOLED slippers!)

After that I Iet my heart settle down a bit, caught my breath, and made sure it was not just dead, but good and dead.  It was.

It was certainly not a mouse.  It was huge. At first look I thought it was a friggin' chipmunk, but it was larger, fatter, fluffier, and grey and tweedy, not brown and striped. 

I gingerly picked up the very tiny trap holding the great big thing, went downstairs and took both outside.  It was dark.  It was raining.  I left it on the deck railing until it would be light enough to get pictures for ID.

Okay, now it was not yet 5:00 am, but no way was I going to be able to get back to sleep.  Quick - to the Internet!

I still thought it was a chipmunk - especially since it had that short bushy tail.  Still, that coloring....

Then I thought, although I've NEVER seen one in my life, maybe it was a pack rat?  Here the internet let me down.  Too many pictures were labeled pack rat, but they were not consistent.

When it was light enough I took pictures of the corpse.  Now I could see it wasn't a chipmunk or squirrel - see those long whiskers? those big ears?  that pointed face?  Could this be a pack rat?

I will take the frozen corpse down to T/L Pest Control office tomorrow and get it ID'd.  Meanwhile, bottom line:

What the heck was it doing in my attic?  How did it get IN there?  (Mice I get... they are tiny and can flatten themselves into anything.)  But a 10"-long (nose to tail tip) ... thing???


It's been just one dang thing after another this year.  Now I'm tired, cranky, anxious.  And worried.  Are there MORE???   One thing IS for sure.

I need bigger traps.

How's YOUR Sunday going?

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P.S.  Early morning excitement aside, I did get something done today.
Check out the Garden Project page - 1st posting since May 1st!  'Bout darn time, no?

The war escalates

Last year I ranted on about the deer - how they either ate everything in bloom, stripped plants and shrubs before they could bloom, or otherwise trampled things down as they went after things just out of reach.  I will never have anything nice to say about deer unless it's whether to serve them with red wine or a nice rose!  Even now, as winter crawls by,  they roam every night, gnawing down my yews, etc. 

I was glad of one thing - deer can't climb trees.  Tall stuff was safe.

Until now.

Now another species has made it to my hit-list: squirrels.  I've never, ever had a beef with squirrels, until this winter.

For the past 5 weeks I've watched from the windows as they systematically stripped my shrubs of bark and ate next year's tree blossom.  It's not like it's 20 below and deep snow.  No.  The winter is mild.  The ground is friable.  The buried nuts are everywhere.  But I've never seen them dig them up.  Instead ....

The top:  more than half of all magnolia buds have been eaten by squirrels.

The middle:  there are only one or two flower buds left on the entire dogwood tree.

The bottom:  I hold out no hope for the mock orange shrubs.  Most of the mature limbs have been stripped of all bark - which will kill the plant.

As I type they are now in the magnolia.  Sure.  There's not much left anywhere else for them to destroy.

Yep, things are going to get a little more hard-line around here.  Relatives living in Louisiana don't have this particular problem, though.  But then, they enjoy squirrel stew - a lot.  (Note to self - email cousin for recipe.)

Just remember, they started it. :-(