As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was reviewing an early 20th century book on trapping the Muskrat, which is not a rat at all, but a water rodent like a beaver, and from the Indian word, Musquash.
These are the most industrious little creatures, and I delight in them as they build like beavers, but their material is the rush, instead of the tree.
They are the low end of the food chain like rabbits and everything kills them, so they produce a number of young a year and most die. Tularemia is a large killer of muskrats which do require trapping to keep their populations healthy.
In 5 star restaurants the dark meat on the menu known as Marsh Rabbit, is muskrat. It is delicious as it is created off of cattails shoots, and mink and owls just tear into it.
What the trapping book contained was an interesting blurb in how to protect your property from predators of the air, starting with the heinous great horned owl to the Cooper's hawks, which are like a cancer in poultry and small things.
The way the writer did this was in the following passage, and I place it here for historical reasons, as the police state tries to fine and imprison people who are protecting their animals from being slaughtered.
"Therefore we must resort to steel traps for their destruction. This is not as difficult as it would seem at first thought. Knowing their habit of alighting on the highest point of vantage while awaiting their prey, we proceed to set up poles in our marsh, which are about eight inches in diameter at the top. On the tops of these poles we conceal our traps (preferably jump traps), by covering them with water-soaked chaff or leaves. Pegs are driven into the sides of the poles, upon which we ascend when tending the traps. These poles need not be very high when they are set up in the open; eight or ten feet above the water would be sufficient, when there are no higher objects near. The erection of one such pole would suffice for every ten acres of territory."
Arno Erdman Schmidt
Nothing like a precise German to come up with this.
I would being a smart bird add the following. The owl poles do not have to be in the water, but located on the edge of tree groves, as the birds prefer to sit in the open so predators do not eat them.
Six inches is wide enough for a trap of 1 1/2 coil spring size. Two small nails with the heads cut off, set apart in the width of the trap base, will hold the trap in place.
Weaker springs are better in a used trap, so it does not break the hollow bones of these air predators.
Instead of steps up the side, a simple base on the bottom of the pole to keep it erect will suffice, and have the added benefit of that when a "pirate of the air" as the author termed them, was caught, the motion would tip the pole over, concealing it from anyone seeing it, so no one would know what the protector of their property was up to.
It would be reasonable to conclude that a wooden fence staple nailed to the post below the top would anchor it, and of course dealing with the two holes.
What two holes?
The first hole is that one under your nose in knowing enough to keep it shut in not telling anyone what you are doing and the second hole is one dug to become the permanent home of whatever was captured.
Americans get into too much trouble by not just keeping their mouths shut.
Just some lost knowledge that people should probably preserve for the time when the eagles start again flying off with your children like the good olde days, as they are already making meals of your kitties and puppies on your front lawns as the animal control in high wages contemplates how Obama wonderful it all is.
agtG
