Country Living

By |2023-03-11T11:12:23-06:00March 13th, 2023|A Writer's Life, Make Me Think Monday|2 Comments

Living in the country means living with wildlife. Raccoons, possums, deer, gophers, and armadillos are always roaming around, tunneling through the property.

We see them cross the yard late at night and/or early in the morning. Usually, it’s no big deal.

Unless there’s a major rainstorm and four inches of rain falls in an afternoon for two days in a row.

When that happens, this happens.

Fence posts washed out.

Deep ruts through the yard.

Gigantic dirt washes where the tunnels were.

It’s a mess and dangerous to humans and pets.

We had the holes filled and contacted a wildlife relocation company to trap the armadillo we’d seen in the yard multiple times.

Traps were set around his most recent dig sites.

 

The wildlife relocator assured us the armadillo would be guided into his traps by the interesting construction.

A configuration that looks like giant wooden Xs leading to the no-kill traps.

Right…

It’s been three weeks since the traps were set.

No armadillo inside either trap.

The question now is: Do we leave the traps? Or assume Mr. Armadillo has moved on to more fertile ground because we spread stuff to wipe out all the ants and grubs he’d been munching on?

If we remove the traps, I’m sure the creatures will, no doubt, return to dig tunnels again. They have that inbred sense to know when danger is gone and dinner is available.

So the battle of living in the country goes on. I’m thinking the traps have been up so long the yard will look funny without them. We’re gonna keep trying.