No Mercy

This is the reason I shoot ground squirrels:

Until Monday afternoon, this was a lovely, thriving row of broccoli starts. Some time between Monday noon and evening, an animal helped itself to the salad bar. (I was at a meeting.) I will not tolerate this. I am willing to tithe a small amount of my produce to the wildlife—the robins have eaten a few strawberries this week—but this kind of damage cannot stand. We weren’t able to find the perpetrator.

I was home all day yesterday. While I waited for the CenturyLink tech to show up, I worked on grocery bags. The 1541 and I are getting to know each other. As I walked back to the house for lunch—the 1541 lives in the garage with my car—I spotted a ground squirrel sitting next to the pile of wood that is going to feed the wood burner next winter. Unfortunately, the ground squirrel also spotted me and ran off.

The CenturyLink tech showed up after lunch. He concluded that the problem wasn’t in the line but in the programming. I had suspected that was the problem because we lost long-distance service after they disconnected the internet, although the representative I spoke with last week overrode my objections and insisted on sending a tech out anyway. This tech was very nice. He tried several times to call the customer support line on my behalf and even he couldn’t get through. I thanked him and sent him off and said I would wrestle with CenturyLink again. After spending 20 minutes in phone menu hell, I got a live person on the phone who was able to resolve the problem.

Eventually, the ground squirrel came out again. I headed to the upstairs bathroom, where I quietly removed the screen from the window. This bathroom overlooks the back yard and works nicely as a tree stand. The husband once shot a deer from this same window. (“Work smarter, not harder,” he told me afterward.) I could have shot from the porch, but it was safer for me to shoot down toward the ground.

I won’t post the picture that I texted to the husband, so you’ll have to believe me that I shot and killed it. I threw the carcass out into the woods. The ravens have been helpful in cleaning up the remains. I don’t know for sure that it was the same ground squirrel that was in the garden, but it won’t have any future opportunities to ravage my seedlings.

By then, it was time for chicken chores. I went out to gather eggs and refill the waterer and found this:

Sigh.

That is the same garter snake that I admonished to stay away from the chickens. Did it listen? Of course not. I can’t decide if it went into the coop for warmth or to eat eggs, although I don’t think garter snakes eat eggs. Black rat snakes eat eggs, maybe, but not garter snakes.

I tried to coax it into the five-gallon bucket I was carrying but it was having none of that. It scooted away from me and out the door into the chicken yard. I thought for sure the chickens were going to get it because I heard a lot of excited clucking as I raced out of the coop. The snake somehow managed to escape the chicken yard and disappeared under the billboard tarp, with me (once again) yelling at it to stay away from the chickens. Will it listen? We shall find out.

[I need to catch it and move it to the garden as a ground squirrel deterrent. It is not as big as the racer snake I’ve had out there, but it is not small, either.]

Not all of the wildlife is so annoying. I saw this moth on the door to the garage:

A hawk moth? If anyone has better intel, drop a comment.

And the mama robin who snagged the most desirable piece of porch rafter real estate is feeding three babies now:

Every spring, just like clockwork.

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Was it a productive day? It didn’t feel like it. I didn’t get as far with the canvas grocery bags as I wanted to, but I am further ahead than I was on Monday. Hopefully, CenturyLink is now done wasting my time (and that of their techs). I chipped away at the ground squirrel population. I also got to enjoy some beautiful wildlife that wasn’t bent on making my life difficult. And I had peppermint stick ice cream with hot fudge sauce for dinner just because I’m an adult and I can do that. On balance, it was not a bad day.