Ever eat coon? Or maybe gopher stew?
Just a thought,
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Murray" <ericm@lne.com>
To: <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: blowing up gophers
>
> On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 09:45:33PM -0500, Phil Ethier wrote:
> >
> > >The current set doesn't seem to be eating the
> > >bait; I think I have managed to breed smarter gophers.
> >
> > Hey, you should apply for a grant to study the evolution of burrowing
> > quadrupeds. Instead of getting rid of them, make some money on them.
>
> Actually, I used to do that sort of stuff-- got a degree
> in Wildlife Biology. I wound up studying grizzly bear habitat.
>
> There's no money in this sort of thing. It's the reason
> I became a programmer; the projects I worked on kept
> getting canceled due to lack of funds.
>
> (yea, I know you were kidding)
>
>
> It turns out that the lawn isn't all the gophers have been at: we
> discovered the other day that they have been eating the roots of our
> apple trees. We planted some heirloom cider apples three year ago,
> so we'd be able to make better hard cider. They all looked great and
> were starting to leaf out a couple weeks ago but when we went to weed
> them saturday some of them were looking all dried out and didn't have
> many leaves. Those were the ones that the gophers had eaten. One had
> a burrow right under the trunk, and I stuck my hand down there and there
> wernt' any roots left. The gophers ate em all!
>
> Little bastards, this means war!
>
>
> I tried the lye+bleach deal that was suggested here on the gophers in
> the lawn saturday and the orchard yesterday, so far none of them have
> come back but its only been a few days.
>
> The area I live in used to have a lot of orchards and vinyards in
> the late 1800s; there are still some small abandoned orchards around.
> We've found a number of old fruit trees on our property including the
> biggest old apple tree I have ever seen.
>
> But everything we plant gets eaten-- from below by gophers, from above by
> deer, and if it fruits then birds (jays, woodpeckers) and chipmunks eat
> the fruit. My wife can't plant anything decorative around the house
> 'cause it'll get eaten by the deer; our garden works only because its
> fenced off and everything is grown in raised beds with wire mesh
> on the bottoms. Still haven't eaten any cherries from the cherry tree;
> woodpeckers(!) take them all.
>
> Racoons ate all the apples last year, not only at our place
> but all our neighbors as well. I don't know how commercial/homestead
> people 100 years ago managed to harvest anything... maybe they
> just had so much that the critters couldn't eat it all, or
> they had their kids spend the nights outside with a .22.
>
>
> Eric
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