Caught in a Trap

The cause of all trouble, the root of all sorrow, the dread of every man lies in this one small word - sin. It has crippled the nature of man. It has caused man to be caught in the devil's trap. - Billy Graham

We use an assortment of traps around here in order to catch predators, pests, and vermin.  We realize we're not going to be successful in eliminating every pest, nor would we want to.  There is a natural order of predator and prey.  For the most part this balance is important to the landscape.  For example, killing every single rat snake would eradicate the fear in the henhouse when collecting eggs and you find yourself eyeball to eyeball with a 6 foot snake eating eggs.  These snakes are harmless to humans, but can really scare you!  If you killed them all, your rat problem would be a huge.  

One must learn to pick your battles.  Squirrels, for example.  Playful critters, for sure.  Fun to watch in the yard.  However, the population of these "tree rats" has exploded here lately due to a favorable pecan and acorn crop.  I like having them around.  We do eat the occasional squirrel in a brown gravy.  If meat prices continue to rise, we have plenty of fresh squirrels for supper that are only a .22 long rifle bullet away.

The squirrels have really gotten emboldened lately.  Yesterday after church, one sat on our window sill and watched us eat lunch.  Very rude of the old fellow!  Then, after planting rows of snap beans, lima beans, corn and peas, something was digging up all the seeds!  The deal breaker for me occurred last week.  After planting all of the vegetables, I've gotten in the habit of planting two varieties of Sunflowers on the perimeter of the garden in the cinderblocks the border the picket fence.  I bent over and planted a 30 foot row of sunflowers.  Back breaking work, to be sure.

The next morning, imagine my dismay to see the sunflower seeds all dug up and eaten by our bushy tailed friends.  This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  I set a small cage trap right on top of the cinderblocks and baited it with (you guessed it) Sunflower seeds.  For three days - nothing.  Then, this morning, our friend's greed got the best of him.  Caught in a trap!

He realized what a pickle he was in.  There was no way out!

No amount of clawing against the cage would save him.  There is no parole from this incarceration.  Justice must be served.

I'll leave it to your imagination about what happened to Mr. Squirrel.  You might say he went on a long vacation from which he won't be returning.  You might say he was sent off to "summer camp."  For those with a soft spot for our furry friends, I'll spare you the macabre details.  I will, however, leave a clue.  This is our cat, Ginger, visiting the prisoner...

Visiting hours at central lockup are now closed.  There will be no more seeds dug up in the garden - at least not by this fellow.

Sunflower Power

Before we switched to a packaged Dairy Ration to feed our dairy cows, we mixed our own ration.  One of the components of the ration was Black Oil Sunflower Seeds.  Black Oil Sunflower seeds give supplemental nutrition to cows, specifically fatty acids and higher milk protein.  Since switching to the ration, we haven't purchased sunflower seeds for them.  We feel that they are getting good nutrition from the ration AND a 50 lb bag of black oil sunflower seeds was doggone expensive!

My parents went on their annual trip to South Dakota to visit with family and friends and to hunt for pheasants and brought back two sunflower heads for us.  I have them pictured below.  I should have put my hand in the photo for comparison purposes as you can't really discern the size of the sunflowers.  Trust me, they are bigger than my head!  The item on top of them is one of the many louffa gourds we grow, and I'll post on that perhaps later this week.

We ate some of the seeds right off the head but decided to go ahead and feed the rest to the milk cows.  These, I think, are confectionary sunflower seeds and not black oil sunflower seeds, but I read that they are still considered beneficial feed for cattle.  It was a beautiful afternoon, so Tricia and I stood on the back patio and pulled all the seeds off the heads and captured them in a bucket.

I snacked on a few walking to the barn.  They taste great right off the flower head.  Mom & Dad also bring us bags of South Dakota sunflowers in dill pickle flavor, barbecue flavor, and bacon flavor.  We devour those things!  The cows, however, are getting the regular unsalted flavor.

Since Benjamin will be showing Clarabelle in the Jefferson Davis Parish Livestock Show, we decided to give her the sunflower seeds so she'd get the benefit of the fat supplement in her diet.  Oddly, she picked around the seeds and only ate the dairy ration.  She lifted her big head and chewed funny.  I guess the texture was new to her.  I certainly didn't want to waste the South Dakota sunflowers.  I thought about feeding them to our hens, but then Tricia suggested that we feed them to our other dairy cow, Rosie.  She's in milk and could benefit from the seeds.  We dumped them into her trough, and she quickly gobbled them all up and moaned for more.  Clarabelle's pickiness caused her to lose out on a mighty fine and nutritious meal.