Sharing The Cucumber Crop

The garden is producing lots of good, healthy, wholesome food for us.  It's almost overwhelming to harvest it and then bring it in and process it.  We've been blanching multitudes of fresh green beans with more to come.  We're eating them fresh, too.  That's the best way with the new potatoes we've dug so far.

The cucumbers are starting to really produce.  We've been eating cucumber salad daily.  I'll post in a few days our favorite recipe.  In the photo below you can see a trellis that I have three different varieties of cucumbers growing on: Boston Pickling Cucumber, Marketmore Cucumber and Suyo Long Cucumber.  I think I have a fourth variety in there as well: Organic Pickling Cucumber. 

We do have a problem, though.  As I was harvesting cukes, I noticed that several of the ones on the very bottom had been eaten on by a critter of some sort. 

With flowers-a-plenty and many cucumbers at different stages, we have plenty of cucumbers to share with family and friends.  I'm not happy about sharing with critters, though!

I have a small varmint cage trap that a friend gave me.  I pulled it out of the barn and set it with a combination of chicken feed and dry dog food.  The next morning, here's what greeted me...

A RAT!  This one doesn't look like the big Norway rats that I'm constantly killing in the hay loft in the barn.  All I know is that he won't be munching on our cucumbers any more.  We're not operating a 'catch and release' program on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Consider him e-Rat-icated fromt he premisis.  Rats make a mess, carry disease, and eat up the produce.