The Masked Bandit

A couple of month's ago, I re-read "Where the Red Fern Grows," a great novel about 10 year old Billy Colman and his two coon dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.  I tell you, if you don't get choked up reading that book, you have ice water running in your veins.  Billy loves his dogs and his dogs love him.  They all love treeing coons, too.

I have a lot of bad experiences with raccoons.  They are a very smart, formidable foe.  Back when I was crawfishing for a living, they cost me lots of money.  At night they would forage through my ponds, eating crawfish out of my traps - crawfish that I could have otherwise sold.  To add insult to injury, they would turn over traps.  Being unable to see the traps, I would then run over with my boat, flattening them out at a cost of $8.50 per trap.  In the early mornings, I would walk through a patch of woods that bordered my crawfish ponds.  The coons, with bellies full of crawfish, would sleep in the crooks of trees.  I would see them and shoot them out of the treetops and they would plummet to the ground with a loud thud.  They gave me fits.

They also, I've learned, will kill your chickens.  This afternoon late, I walked to the henhouse to collect eggs.  The girls' laying has diminished.  Many are broody and the rest are just hot and tired.  I picked up 8 eggs today.  When I came out of the henhouse with my basket, I heard a rustling noise in the grass in the woods adjacent to our property.  It was a juvenile raccoon trying to get in through the fence.  I scared the rascal.

I'm unlike Billy Colman in that I don't have two redbone coonhounds.  I opened up the back gate running after the coon.  The coon did what coons do - he scampered up a tree and watched me.  Can you see him in the 'V' in the tree right in the very center of the photo below?

I ran as quick as I could to get my 12 gauge shotgun and ran back.  Without dogs like Old Dan and Little Ann at the bottom of the tree, I was worried the masked bandit might have climbed down and escaped.  But no - he was still up in the crook of the tree looking down at me.  Waiting, I'm sure, for me to leave so that he could have a nice chicken dinner.

The rascal will not be eating chicken dinner tonight, or any night in the future.  I took aim, pulled the trigger - BOOM!, and the raccoon fell to the forest floor with a resounding thud.

Tricia said he was cute and maybe she's right, but this cute fellow is a chicken eater, and I can't abide with that type of neighbor.  I have to think that Billy Colman, Old Dan and Little Ann would agree.

The Predator Becomes the Prey

A while back we lamented the fact that we lost 39 hens to mink.  Those critters savagely slaughtered our egg layers.  It was only after I killed some squirrels and baited the traps with their blood and guts that I was able to catch the male and female in the trap.  They were summarily executed by firing squad.  We haven't had an issue with mink since that day.  I still drive around and see mink that have been killed while crossing the road.  Perhaps I shouldn't, but every time I see a mink carcass on the road, I do a fist pump and break in to a grin.  Mink are vicious killers and they get no sympathy from me.

This morning Tricia hollered, "Kyle, there's a mink on our back porch."  I'm mostly deaf, so I had to confirm what I thought I heard.  Yes, I heard her correctly.  We do have wild creatures like possums and coons and armadillos that will venture near the house, but never mink.  I ran to the gun shelf, pulled down the 12 gauge and loaded it with shells.  I ran out to the back patio and sure enough, that rascal was between the french doors and the back of the fireplace.

I couldn't hardly shoot him there - I'd break the windows and splinter the wood.  That little devil looked at me and bared his teeth.  I bared mine back.  Ginger, our cat, was around and I didn't want her in the crossfire.  The mink made a break for it around the back side of the house, but I had a bead on that beady-eyed creature.  BOOM!  Or you might say, "Pop, goes the weasel."  

Look at the teeth on this varmint!  He can tear some chicken up.  I quickly ran back to the pasture and around the henhouse to see if he had killed any of our chickens, but I found no dead or injured birds.  I put my foot in the photo below for perspective, so that you can see the size of this animal.

What would cause him to come up to the house?  Was he sick?  Rabid?  Did he just have a death wish?  We'll never know, but I'm happy Tricia happened to see him and called me so that I could take care of business.  That's one less mink to kill our chickens.

The Indians, I read in history, helped the pilgrims by teaching them to bury a fish underneath corn seeds to provide slow release fertilizer.  I grabbed a shovel and buried the mink in the garden, sort of next to the goat.  We'll see if mink works as good as fish as a garden fertilizer.