Enter nature: nattering, clattering, battering, splattering, pattering, shattering.

[bwt1213]

Cats are good for that stuff.

We had a snowshoe mix years ago. Huge cat. Incredible hunter. Super tough. Even walked away from a fight with a fox who thought he'd found a tasty dinner.

He was 20lbs, not fat. His head came up to my greater trochanter (over 36") when he stood on his hind legs. Nature trembled when he stepped out the back door. Little creatures disappeared like fog in sunlight.

When winter came and the field mice tried to take up residence in our house, he found them all and quickly.

Miss him dearly. Best cat we've ever had. Beautiful. Looked a lot like this pulled-up picture.

Do you have cats?

th-1906823988.jpeg

We had a cat twenty years ago and more. Our pests weren't chipmunks or squirrels. They were raccoons. Mikey was okay with them until one tried to take Mikey's dinner. Mikey was over 20 pounds and not at all fat. The raccoon was about 45 pounds, male, and mean. Mikey had to go to the vet for a serious slice to the bone in his left shoulder to his back. The raccoon did not survive. Mikey left his disemboweled remains in the front yard. Two weeks in the vet and Mikey was ready for more. The raccoons left town. After that, Mikey hunted birds and caught them in the air. You need a Mikey. Around here, they're called Barn Cats. People sell them. They're not pets, really. They just have a territory, and if you feed them they will stick with you. Just don't try to pet one.

[Naboka]

We had a cat twenty years ago and more. Our pests weren't chipmunks or squirrels. They were raccoons. Mikey was okay with them until one tried to take Mikey's dinner. Mikey was over 20 pounds and not at all fat. The raccoon was about 45 pounds, male, and mean. Mikey had to go to the vet for a serious slice to the bone in his left shoulder to his back. The raccoon did not survive. Mikey left his disemboweled remains in the front yard. Two weeks in the vet and Mikey was ready for more. The raccoons left town. After that, Mikey hunted birds and caught them in the air. You need a Mikey. Around here, they're called Barn Cats. People sell them. They're not pets, really. They just have a territory, and if you feed them they will stick with you. Just don't try to pet one.

The satisfaction of having a big, tough cat.

Priceless.

Too bad Russ is allergic.

Good for Mikey. Raccoons can be formidable.

When we first moved into this house, we heard a racket outside. A couple of huge raccoons milling around the back deck. I walked out, expecting them to run. The biggest one just
turned slightly, looked over his shoulder and looked at me, as if to say, "you really want a piece of me?"

Hmm. We had a 3 year old and 18 month old then. So, yes, Mr. Raccoon, I was willing to live with you, but now I want a piece of you. Went back inside, loaded my Ruger 22 match pistol with subsonic rounds, went back outside and put half a dozen rounds in his head. The other ran, terrified. From that point on, the raccoons scatter like crazy whenever we come out. It's like the message was passed from generation to generation.

The wife and kids never knew, and I never told them.

I put the dead one by the treeline, but it was gone by morning. Doubt that any of them retrieved their fallen comrade for burial services.

Raccoons have stuff in their poop that can kill a person. Not kidding.

[RussDNails]

Hmmm........maybe a barn cat might be the trick...........

I'm about to go full on Bill Murray in Caddyshack. I checked at Home Depot over the weekend and they have a pretty impressive array of baits, traps, poisons, etc. Of particular interest were stinky smoke bombs that look like little sticks of dynamite..........I'm already having visions of myself unspooling wire into the chipmunk holes..........

If you don't see me on here anymore, you'll know what happened. I blew up my house trying to eradicate chipmunks

[bwt1213]

Hmmm........maybe a barn cat might be the trick...........

I'm about to go full on Bill Murray in Caddyshack. I checked at Home Depot over the weekend and they have a pretty impressive array of baits, traps, poisons, etc. Of particular interest were stinky smoke bombs that look like little sticks of dynamite..........I'm already having visions of myself unspooling wire into the chipmunk holes..........

If you don't see me on here anymore, you'll know what happened. I blew up my house trying to eradicate chipmunks

We moved to a new house and moved Mikey with us. The new house had chipmunks, FOR A WHILE. One morning, on my way to work, I stepped outside and there were six chipmunk heads on the doorsill. They were neatly arranged, in formation. I called Mikey (he was almost like a dog) and he came. I told him he was a very good boy. He allowed me to pet him, a little. I think he appreciated that I liked his work. Whenever I think of him, I think of the Adams Family. He could have been in that show. He also eradicated rabbits and left their heads as trophies, too. We had foxes and coyotes and they left Mikey alone -- or he avoided them, one or the other. The badger had his own burrow and didn't bother us, and Mikey left him alone. I know, everyone will tell me: We don't need no stinkin' badgers. And we didn't. But we left him alone, anyway. That was when we had about 8.4 acres of land, about a third of it wetland. It must have been a paradise for Mikey.

[RussDNails]

I'm surprised any cat can actually catch up with the damn things, they're like little lightning bolts..........I do see neighborhood cats hanging out in my yard near what I think is their primary nest entrance but haven't seen any heads laying around At this point I'd be thrilled to see a few on my porch........still have Bill Murray quotes running through my head "if you kill all the golfers" : )

[bwt1213]

Like a dog: Mikey would retrieve. If I threw him a toy, he'd bring it back, drop it, and wait for me to throw it again. Mikey was semi-feral. I have never seen a domesticated cat do that. On the other hand, Mikey would get bored. After three or five throws, he'd had enough. Dogs will play fetch until they can't move. Not Mikey. And when I went on walks, Mikey would walk with me. It looked like he was trying to flush game. The only times it sort-of worked, Mikey would flush a rabbit and I got to see him kill it and eat it. So, maybe he was using me.

[lalatan]

Lol, this thread has become a male domain. The ladies are likely grossed out by this discussion. Russ, sorry about all your tribulations with the chipmunks. It sounds like the food supply is too abundant with not enough predators but you deduced that already. My guess would be nobody wants to cut down any of those oak trees to alter their habitat.

I used to backpack in Banff National Park and watch tourists feeding chipmunks and ground squirrels (it's illegal now because they come to rely on human food, don't stockpile for winter and die). Because it's bear country you had to hang all your food up on a clothes line strung between tall poles. They had a pulley system with clips so it was easy to do. When you got your backcountry camping permit they gave each person a plastic bag to put their food in. I always had a bag of trail mix with lots of nuts in it for energy while hiking. I placed it at the bottom of the bag inside 2 of the food bags, thinking that would be the safest place as it was 2 ft below the clothesline. (I had seen how effortlessly squirrels could run aerial telephone cables.) Yes, you know what happened. Some acrobatic rodent ran the clothesline in the dark, climbed down the slippery plastic bag, bored a hole straight through the 2 bags and then the double ziplock bags and enjoyed a midnight snack at my expense. They are smart and tenacious!

As a teen who lived and worked on a farm I have a completely different attitude toward vermin than the current politically correct version. We used to bail hay, put it in stooks and then later load the stooks onto a rack to take back to the yard and build a stack. There were often mice and sometimes nests of them on the ground under the stooks. They were the enemy, eating our crops and chewing through things. So I would stomp them with my boots and kill as many as possible (even though they were fast I got pretty good at it). I considered it my duty. However, there was an aspect of self-defense involved as well. There was the possibility in their panic they could run up your pant leg. It never happened to me but I don't think it would be a good experience; they have sharp, little teeth.

Dealing with gross stuff was an every day occurrence. One day while cutting saplings to use as fence stays on a gate I was building I smelled a strange, powerful odor. I saw a dead cow lying on its side in the summer heat. I'll spare you any other details about it. I reported it to the authorities (my parents). A month later I was in the same area and thought I'd check the scene. I expected to see some hide and/or bones but there was nothing, not a trace. I marveled at the efficiency of the scavengers. (coyotes, crows, magpies, hawks) and got a firsthand lesson on their importance as so often stated in nature shows.

[RussDNails]

Hey Lalatan,

Yeah, removing the oak trees wouldn't be viable. There's essentially one or two in every yard on both sides of my street and they're huge. I had the ones in my yard removed when I moved in, it was $4000+ for the service. They estimated that the height of the tallest one was likely about 100 feet and the second one wasn't much smaller. It was quite an event, people in the neighborhood gathered round to watch the spectacle of the nutcases swinging around like monkeys on giant trees with running chain saws with 12 foot blades.

I had the stumps ground up and that left two giant holes filled with wood chips. I had to have a portable dumpster placed in my yard, built a ramp so I could put the chips in a wheelbarrow and keep running back and forth from the holes to the dumpster. Pretty sure I nearly died and I was significantly younger at the time, wouldn't even attempt it now. Then I had to fill the holes and repair the lawn; the holes spanned approximately 30-40% of my entire front yard.........

Kind of a cool story, when the aftereffects of hurricane Sandy blew through our area, it literally knocked over one of my neighbor's oak trees--when it toppled, the root system was so extensive it pulled up the entire lawn in the front yard! It's an image I'll never forget, the whole lawn was just hanging from the bottom of the overturned tree and the front yard was nothing but dirt..........

And don't even get me started on the leaf situation here in the fall. In spite of having my trees removed, we get so many leaves that they're a good 4-5 inches deep in my back yard. We have to truck them out to our tree lawns and the city comes by with giant vacuums for lack of a better word and sucks them into the back of giant trucks. Every season I have piles of leaves chin high all the way across the entire length of my tree lawn, and I'm over 6 feet tall! Pets and small children can disappear if we're not careful My back is still recovering from my leaf removal efforts this year.......

[JedMedGrey]

Been very busy the past week or so - had seen the wonderful list of __atterings and finally had time and headspace to read the post. Glad I did! bwt1213 - we did not get as much ice a few counties to the west of you, but stayed out of the woods altogether and in the house for the most part. We could hear the ice chattering in the trees and shrubs when the wind blew. I did have to go to Madison on Saturday, and there were ice prisms on most of the trees and shrubs. Hundreds of tiny rainbows cheering me on my way.

Russ - I'd offer to loan you a cat, but she brings chipmunks into the house and turns them loose. She is actually quite good at keeping other rodent populations down to a tolerable level, and those she usually eats. When she was younger she would eat an entire chipmunk at once, and her overloaded stomach would rebel. Rather than eat only part of it, she just quit eating them. Still wants to show me her catches and they aren't all dead when she brings them inside. We do have hawks, foxes, coyotes, owls and feral cats that keep the chipmunks, squirrels, woodchucks, rabbits, etc., under control.

A good friend was working on a small mammal trapping project in the 80s. One of the sites had so many chipmunks that even after 10 days working a grid with over 400 traps, they were still getting new chipmunks in the center of the grid! Chipmunks make a mess of Sherman live traps, so they had to carry extras every day, and wash the filthy ones when they got back to the base camp. Everyone was glad when they finished that site.


Naboka - we had a wonderful cat who hugged us, let us toss him back and forth, played in the sprinklers, adored the German shepherd and the human toddler who were frequent visitors, taught our current dog as a puppy how to treat cats properly, etc. He's been gone about 6 years and we all still miss him very much, even with 2 others now in residence.

nearly pumpkin time . . . take care, all!

[RussDNails]

Thanks for not sending me a cat that brings more chipmunks inside They're doing a fine job on their own..........I think my yard would be a good project for somebody--based on what my neighbors and I have managed to get rid of in the last few years, I'm guessing the population must be in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. They just keep coming and coming, year after year.........I've had at least a few per season every year I've lived in my house........four at once was my limit, now I'm going nuclear

[bwt1213]

Thanks for not sending me a cat that brings more chipmunks inside They're doing a fine job on their own..........I think my yard would be a good project for somebody--based on what my neighbors and I have managed to get rid of in the last few years, I'm guessing the population must be in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. They just keep coming and coming, year after year.........I've had at least a few per season every year I've lived in my house........four at once was my limit, now I'm going nuclear

Mikey wouldn't bring them inside, except maybe in trophy pieces. But I don't know what he'd do at your place, with that many. He sure couldn't eat them all. Maybe one a day, but that would be the limit. Still, I recommend you find a Mikey of your own. Maybe two or three of them. They don't have to live inside. But make sure they have shelter and warm places to sleep.

[RussDNails]

As long as he keeps the damn things out of my living room, I'll build him a little palace in my back yard

[floppers]

so, whilst there might be plenty of things that could kill you here, and really there aren't too many here in the burbs, it sounds like your critters are a way bigger pain than mine. I have possums (not like your opossums, way nicer), the ringtails are very, very, cute, and stick to the trees and the possum boxes we leave for them to protect them from the Currawongs (birds), the brush tails are stinky wall and ceiling destroyers, but I keep the tree limbs away from my house, and have pvc pipes on all the wires that come to the roof. My only real critter problems are the occasional mouse family, pantry moths, and snails. The offspring still living at home had no issue with the sticky moth trap in the pantry UNTIL two baby mice got their paws (?) stuck to it, I had to provide text advice as to how to remove their feet from the trap (a product called OOMPH which breaks down adhesive) and then advise her to relocate them to a nearby park. I originally suggested euthanasia however received an SMS response.."They are just little baby brothers who were hungry and wanted something to eat, and they would have been fine and living their lives, if mankind didn't build here". I responded, "Yep, but I'm not pulling down the house", and gave the park option.

The mice are in good company at the park. I have also had to rehome 236 snails to the park. Apparently my attempts to teach snails to fly (spectacularly unsuccessful) are cruel (I'm not even allowed to accidentally step on them!). I did consider setting beer traps, however I learned that snails can detect beer from up to 100 metres away, so all that would achieve is attracting the neighbours snails over to my vegetable garden....

[dannyb]

About thirty years ago, on a late spring night, my wife and I had just climbed into bed when all of a sudden we heard a baby crying outside of our bedroom window. We live in the woods and you can't see our house, once the leaves come on the trees, from either of the two nearby roads. I said to my wife that sounds like a baby. She said, "That's what it sounds like to me."

I got out of bed barefoot and wearing running shorts and went outside. I searched all around the grounds and driveway and saw and heard nothing. Once I got back into bed the crying started again. I went out a second time and increased my search area and again I found nothing. I returned to bed and once again the crying started. I was starting to think that this was some Brothers Grimm tale. That some maiden in a hooded cape recused an infant from a Witch's hut and took off through the woods with the infant in a basket and confused our house with some quaint cottage, and placed the basket, not on the front porch, but by our garage doors. She must have placed an amulet of invisibility in the basket to hide the infant from the persuing Witch.

I brought a flashlight out on my third trip. Again I saw and heard nothing. Then a pointed the flashlight at a large black oak tree that stood about twelve feet from our bedroom window, and about seven feet up the tree there were a pair of raccoons staring at me. I pointed the flashlight at the ground and the raccoons had the courtesy of not jumping on my face, but climbing down the tree and scampering off. I returned to bed and the crying had stopped.

[lalatan]

Russ, I imagine you're familiar with weasels and ferrets and their characteristics since you were a biology major. They can be quite the killing machines as many people who keep chickens could testify. I know introducing non-native critters to an ecosystem can be dangerous. But, according to Wikipedia, there are 800k pet ferrets in the US. Both species have the advantage of being able to pursue prey down their burrows. Perhaps a pet ferret would keep your house chipmunk-free and possibly you wouldn't be allergic to it...

Releasing weasels into the "wild" may be not as risky as ferrets. I read an article years ago that stated weasels have such a high metabolism that if they can't find enough food in the winter cold (as you pointed out that may not apply anymore) they die. I know that sounds brutal but that's the way Ma Nature set it up. Interesting story about your oak trees...

Edit: lol, the first word I saw in the board I played after I posted this was VERMIN. Many times this game seems to know what we are talking about or doing. For instance, after my wife and I discussed our family's decision to sue my dad's gold digger girlfriend after she stole 93% of our inheritance, the first word I played was INCONTESTABILITY. And it was so. Is this how conspiracy theories start??? Haha