Monday, May 16, 2005, 17:05
Foiled Again!
The raccoon was back again last night. And the night before. And the night before that.
Ever since the Baltimore orioles showed up last week, and I have been putting out jelly for the orioles, the raccoon has been dining on jelly.
Last night, Randy was getting a drink of water at the kitchen sink when he looked out and saw our furry thief.
I watched it climb into the bird feeder as Randy got ready to surprise it.
"It's climbing the trellis," I reported. "Now it's in the bird feeder. Okay -- now it has picked up the bowl of jelly. . ."
And with that, Randy yanked open the door and raced out on the porch, yelling and brandishing his muzzle loader that was loaded with caps.
Of course, as soon as the raccoon heard the door open, it took a flying leap off the bird feeder.
"That thing doesn't scare easily," Randy said when he returned to the house a few minutes later. "It ran under your truck, and then it ran under my truck, and then it ran up into the bushes and just sat there looking at me."
We stood there in silence for a few moments.
"Great," Randy said. "I build trellises so your Morning Glories will have something to climb, but what did I really end up building? A raccoon ladder."
"Yeah, I guess that's what you built all right," I said.
"Want me to stop at Fleet Farm on my way home from work and get an electric fencer?" Randy asked.
A while back, I read about someone who said he had put electric fencing around his bird feeder to keep the squirrels out.
"Hah!" I said. "I can just see it now. A tiny wire fence running around the platform and the fencer sitting there in the dark going 'click-click, click-click', click-click.'"
"Well, you know, it *might* be worth a try," Randy said.
My husband used birdseed and peanut butter in the live trap last year. So far this year, the raccoon is ignoring birdseed and peanut butter, so last night, Randy put peanut butter and jelly in the live trap. This morning I found the paper plate on the grass, licked clean. Nothing but a few grease spots to show where the peanut butter had been. Apparently the raccoon figured out a way to get the paper plate without setting off the trap.
To keep the raccoons from climbing into the bird feeder last year, Randy put stovepipe over the bird feeder posts. The stovepipe worked extremely well as a deterrent. Didn't look so great. But it worked.
I really don't want to lose my trellises. The birds love to perch on them -- and I haven't even had a chance yet to see how the Morning Glories will like them!
On the other hand, I would rather not be feeding a raccoon. I have already informed Momma Kitty that if she does not come out of her nest when I go down to the barn to give my horse more hay before I go to bed that I am not leaving any food out for her overnight. I think she understands. I don't suppose she's really crazy about having the raccoon in the barn, anyway, with her little ones so close by. Most of the time she comes out while I'm getting hay, and then I put a handful of food down for her. At least that way, I know she won't be positively starving by morning.
Randy's brother says that when he lived in Chicago, he helped a guy trap raccoons in the suburbs and that they used chicken livers and marshmallows. (Sounds yummy, doesn't it?) He said the chicken livers and marshmallows worked extremely well. Personally, I am surprised they didn't end up catching every stray cat in the neighborhood, not to mention a few family pets.
Now that it is getting later in the season, I do have one worry about the raccoon: what if it is a mother with babies?
I mentioned this to Randy last night.
"I'd hate to think that there might be babies somewhere, waiting for a mother who never returned and then the babies slowly starving to death," I said.
Randy was quiet for a minute or so. "Yeah, I guess there *is* that, isn't there."
For the time being, maybe my best bet is to just put out a little birdseed every day and to take the jelly in the house at night.
I have a feeling that if it is a female raccoon, and she has babies, she will be bringing them by for birdseed when they are big enough to eat by themselves. Then maybe we catch all of them and transport them to a new location where the only neighbors are clumps of pine trees overlooking a marsh.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Monday, May 16, 2005, 06:04
Jack Pine Tenacity
The jack pines growing on the bank at the edge of my yard are making their "candles" -- sprouts of new growth at the tips of the branches that look like the candles people put on their Christmas trees way back when. To be fair about it, the white pines growing at the edge of my yard are also growing their candles. The jack pine, however, are especially good at making their new growth look like Christmas candles.
People tend to think of jack pine as "scrub pine" -- but as far as I'm concerned, it all depends upon what you mean by "scrub."
Jack pine flourish in poor soil (sandy or full of shale) where other trees often have difficulty finding a toe-hold, much less flourishing.
A few years ago, one of the jack pine growing on the shale bank across the road behind our mailbox became weighted down with heavy wet snow during a spring snowstorm. The jack pine, by the time the snow stopped, was now leaning out over the road, making it difficult for the mail carrier and for the snowplow to get through. The tree was much too heavy for me to pull it down the rest of the way, or to pull it out of the bank, for that matter, so, I tied a piece of baler twine around the trunk, passed the twine around another tree farther up the bank, and pulled it up out of the way. Later on, my husband pulled the tree back farther yet, parallel to the road, and lashed it to a sturdier tree.
The jack pine didn't mind being pulled in another direction because it is still green and still growing, although instead of growing up toward the sky, it is growing parallel to the bank and to the road, straight toward the south.
Because of the flexibility, Native Americans used jack pine roots to make canoes and snowshoes (and probably a few other things as well), and among Native Americans who are preserving the "old ways," they are still using jack pine.
I have to admire a tree that can grow in poor, rocky soil and that can survive nearly being pulled out by the roots. And I can't help thinking I could learn a lesson from the jack pine: grow where you are given the opportunity -- and never give up, even when life takes you in another direction.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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