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Rich Z's BlatheringsSince Connie and I have retired the SerpenCo business, topics here will focus on topics of a more personal and general nature.
Yuck. Tree rat stew. Sorry, you are what you eat, and I have absolutely NO desire to be part tree rat. I just leave them where they lay wishing that the squirrels were smart enough to recognize that dead squirrel bodies laying on the ground is a darn good sign for them to leave the area.
Of course, we do have some sort of clean-up crew around here that does haul off the carcasses over night. So something likely appreciates my efforts.
Still no signs of squirrel crews on the bamboo shoots. The day sort of got away from me, so I didn't set up the hunter blind today. Maybe tomorrow...
The rain we got the other day seems to be really beneficial to the bamboo shoots. Getting lots of them coming up. Connie and I walked down to our largest grove to check out the temporary pond down there and saw that some of the bamboo shoots were really getting some size on them.
Fortunately I'm not seeing any squirrel damage in that grove. At least not yet. The squirrels REALLY tore it up last year, even with me sending 15 of them on their way to the hereafter. I do have the hunting blind set up in there, just in case they do come back. I have another really small grove of the same bamboo in another area that has already had two shoots destroyed by squirrels. So I think it's just a matter of time before I start seeing squirrel damages in the big grove.
Well, I took another walk about to check for squirrel damage in the big bamboo grove early this evening, and I found some damage, but not absolutely sure it's from a squirrel.....
Usually squirrels will chew right through the shoot, and this just looks completely different. Of course, it could be squirrel damage, just from a squirrel with a different idea about how to destroy bamboo shoots. This took place just a couple of hours in the afternoon between the time I took my walk around in the early afternoon, and then again in early evening.
Might have to start spending some time in the hunter's blind, just in case.
Connie looks like retirement is agreeing with her!
Yeah, I think she is finally getting the hang of it. She has stopped lamenting that she wasn't very constructive for the day. She has worked all her life, from since she was very young, so this not having to work is a completely new experience for her. But she still seems to act guilty when she sleeps past 9 am.
She seemed to make a big turn in her outlook when we started collecting my social security and my retirement from the state of Florida. She has always worried about becoming, as she puts it, "poor again", since we decided to retire the SerpenCo business.
Not seeing any other damage other than those two shoots mentioned above, however, so nowhere near the damage we got last year from the squirrels. The ground rats will have to be dealt with some other way other than shooting them, since they seem to be mostly nocturnal, and unfortunately I don't have a night vision scope for my rifle.
Shame I've been having to relocate the gray rat snakes I find in the bird feeders, otherwise they would be helping out with the rodents.
Have you ever tried using hawk or owl decoys in the bamboo grove? Wonder if that would deter the squirrels?
This is interesting, because just about every time I go down to the bamboo grove and take up station in the hunting blind, a hawk will fly in and sit up in the trees pretty close to me. Perhaps last year's bounty of squirrels, both dead and alive, has made this an attractive feeding ground for hawks, and this year the squirrels know it and are staying away. So perhaps a hawk decoy would be very effective around here if real hawks weren't patrolling for squirrels for me.
So far beyond that one caught on video near the two side chewed bamboo shoots, I haven't seen any other squirrels at all in that bamboo grove. And have not seen any other damage to any other shoots, neither. Not that I am complaining, mind you. It actually feels quite weird to walk in that grove looking at the new shoots and not be disheartened by all of the damaged ones I would normally see from squirrel attacks. Heck, I don't even hear squirrels barking at a distance. We still see quite a few of them along the road a distance from the house, so they ARE still out there, but perhaps they have finally learned that them coming around here really isn't healthy for them.
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