Casualties of the Drought

It rained two inches in October.  None so far in November, although my weather forecast this evening shows a 48% chance of the wet stuff on Friday and a 79% chance on Saturday!  We are praying that we get it.  For years we have sequestered rain water by placing barrels, buckets and water troughs under the drip line of the house and the barn.  Not counting the barn, I think I calculated at one time that I can catch 400 gallons of rainwater with a 1 inch rain.  

We use that rainwater for watering the plants, the chickens, and the cows and goats.  It helps minimize the water bill - when it rains!  Yesterday morning I walked out to bring a 5 gallon bucket full of rainwater to the hens in the chicken tractor.  When I dipped the bucket in the rain barrel, something surprised me.  There was a big dead rat in the barrel that had drowned.  

Upon closer inspection, it was a squirrel.  The poor squirrel had no doubt tried to drink from the barrel and fell in.  Squirrels aren't good swimmers and he succumbed.  With the drought, water isn't as easy to find.  All the water in the ditches has long since evaporated.  We are overrun with squirrels.  They eat all the acorns and pecans and they are plentiful and fat.  I was just thinking that I was going to kill a mess of them and make a good squirrel gravy. 

And then this morning I was greeted with this sight in the water trough that catches rain off of the barn: (Can you see something at about the 4 o'clock position?)

Another drowned squirrel!  But that's not all.  Tricia had pulled another drowned squirrel out yesterday!

There are more shallow water troughs than this one.  I don't know why they are going to that one to try to drink from.  Three doesn't really put a dent into the squirrel population, but I'd rather not see them die and go to waste.  Hopefully we get the rain forecast for this weekend and fill the ditches and holes in the woods with water, thus making available safer places for them to find water.