Rats; An Interesting Observation .....

  So, as everyone would have heard before, there's an old wives tale that says; If ye catch a rat and set fire to its tail,  then let it go? It'll run, screaming, through the burrow system. Its screams will so terrify all the other rats, they'll get the fuck out of Dodge forth with.

  Hold that thought a minute .....

  So, I have my (Licensed) bird traps down, out on the track. I'm baiting them with wild bird feed and, lo and behold, all this seed and stuff, right there on the floor, attracted rats. 

  I've stood here, gazing out at the traps, only to see a solitary rat sneak out from the hedge bank. Grab a mouthful and dash back to cover. Obviously, as the days went by, so I was eventually seeing anything up to three at a time out there.

  Now, this Is the countryside. Rats are perfectly natural inhabitants of the hedgerows. I'm effectively offering them a free meal. What should I expect? Chaffinches and rats.

  However, these rats aren't bothering me. They're living in the bank. Not coming into my cottage. Why then would I even bother poisoning them? I can't kill every rat in fucking Leitrim!

  Then, one day, about a week ago, I look out and, fuck me. I've caught a fucking rat! There he is, jumping around in one of my Potter cage traps. The fuck am I gonna do now?

  See, we're not allowed any sort of hand guns here. Not even an air pistol. Might as well be a .357 Magnum. Because we have no law / concept of 9 pound muzzle velocities.

 Here, an air gun can be what ever power it can be made to. My mate had a standard air rifle that put out about 35 on the chronograph! He had to get a Firearms License for it though. Just like for a .223.

  Anyway, obviously then, an air  pistol pellet was out of the question. An Irishman would simply drop the trap in water. Some wanker off THL would probably tip the rat out to his waiting terriers and film it for face fuck.

  Me? Being all grown up now, and being at peace with the size of my dick? I just decided, fuck it: I'll let the fucking thing go.

  So, I locked the Dogs in. Sauntered out there and approached the trapped rat. And that fucker started doing the wall of death round the inside of that cage. Screaming its fucking lungs out!!! Poor thing was fucking terrified.

  What ever. I carefully (Very carefully! These traps aren't mean't for rats. Mind fingers!) opened the trap and el ratto wasted no time at all in coming out like Usane Bolt and virtually Leaping over the hedge bank in a single bound. Quite possibly still screaming.

  Know what? I haven't seen a single fucking rat since! How curious is that?!


  

It's Rubbed The Lotion On It's Skin .....

  Now, it's Definitely getting the hose!!! 

  Uncommon to most of the self proclaimed " Hunters " and " Trappers " frequenting fora, I really feel no need to show the shit I trap and kill.

It needs to go? I make it go. No song and dance about it. Then, I sling the photo opportunity somewhere discreet and invisible.

  This way has pretty much always worked for me. Especially here, in the middle of nowhere.

Enter The Evil Little Dog!!!

  FFS! I've just put something somewhere discreet. Pesticle joined me and I did notice Evil Little Dog generally being there.

  No problem. Job done, I came back into the compound. Vaguely aware of one hell of a stink in the air. It was Really, Seriously fucking minging, in fact!

  Strange, that. Because I was well away from the spot where the mingers get the slingers.

How come this stench of something near to Skunk (No. Not the herbal kind) was following me this far?!

  That's when I looked down ..... Dis Gusting Evil Little Dog!!! What The FUCK Have You Done?!?    

  It gets the hose ....!

It's Still There ....!

 A week ago, today, I found a mink cage in the river in town, yeah? Told ye all about it Below / Here.

  Back in town again, today. Have to have a look, don't ye? And, fuck me; There it is!

  Shifted and drifted a yard or two. Otherwise still much as I first found it. Can ye imagine that happening in england? I can't!

  Local people are now even suggesting I just " Bring it with me. " But, as I still explain to them; That's not the way I see things done, around here. It's not my property. I'm not touching it. Period.

 Saying that; It bodes damn well for me, doesn't it? Should I ever choose to set some traps of my own down along that river. No bugger'll interfere with those either, look.

  Sadly, that's not about to happen. Simply because I only go into town once a week. Can't go about, setting even killer traps, then just inspecting them once a bloody week! Some modern Gamekeepers might. I wouldn't.

 Makes me wonder what story lies behind all this though; Someone ~ his name's known ~ fenced the river in. Bought ducks to sit on it. There's even an automatic feeder there for them. 

 Then a mink came along and started helping itself to the ducks. So, someone bought a trap and set it. Now, all that's there is the feeder and the trap.

 The truth behind it will filter through to me, eventually. I'll tell ye, here, once I find out.

Collateral Shrews .....

Poor little bastards. Four of them. Two under the sink unit. One in the Pest Room. One outside it, in the kitchen. I fuckin' Hate catching shrews. Most perfectly harmless little creatures there are. And the most perfectly useless too. Nothing will eat them. Don't know why. Never read of a decent explanation either.

Weird thing is, they're insectivores. So, what are they doing coming after my peanut butter? And, if they'll eat peanut butter; Who's to say they won't eat grain, wax, or what ever other formulation of Bait I might put down for my mice, instead of traps, look?

Anyway, I seem to have cleared up this latest incursion by the House Mice. Magpies enjoyed the treats. Maybe I'll get the tiny live traps out, next time? Never been happy about killing captives in those things either though .....

Shrews, eh? Some things all the Training, Manuals and even a life time of experience never quite gets round to covering the answers to.

Idstone Trap Pit

Anyone remember when I said, on THL, how I'd always fancied trying out an " Idstone Trap Pit "? I got the idea from Carnegie's excellent little book; " Practical Trapping ".

For those of ye outside the loop the, it's basically a square hole with a lid over it. Ye bury pipes, leading down into this pit. Inside the pit, where the pipes lead in, ye set traps. In Carnegie's time, only Gin Traps were available. Today, of course, we'd use a more humane type of trap, designed to kill outright, rather than possibly just hold the victim.

So, anyway; I long since announced that I really should get round to constructing one and trying it out. I then went quiet about it and, knowing THL, there would've been plenty enough people murmuring, knowingly to each other that; 'There we are! All talk, that Ditch Shitter! Always full of bright ideas ~ Never actually gets out and Does anything though!'.

Well, little might they realise that Ditch Shitter is more the other way. I get so bloody busy doing things, I simply haven't always the time to sit and Write about what I get up to! Can't have it both ways, see? That's why I'm rather late in bringing ye a report on what happened with my own Idstone Pit. And, unfortutely, I was a few years too late in ever trying to action the bloody idea in the first place! I should've done it back in Hampshire or Hull. It's ~ as I'd suspected ~ just not a project suited to the local conditions I now live and work with.

Here's what happened then: First of all, I bought a nice, galvanised Inspection Cover. 'Man Hole' cover, if ye like. That gave me the exact size of my hole in the ground. I then built a four sided wooden box. Idea being to use this box as a sort of shuttering, to stop the pit walls from ever caving in and firing the traps or otherwise just making a mess of things in there.

To the top of my box I fitted the frame which the cover sits in. At two sides, I cut through circular holes. These holes being a perfect fit for some plastic land drain pipe we get around here. And there I was, all set.

Here it is, look, without the cover on and not showing the pipes I have to connect to the two holes. Nice, neat job. All heavily creasoted, to give the wood some protection against the damp earth.




As said, all I needed to do now was to dig myself a nice, straight sided, square hole to exactly accept this box. I set too and, before very long, I dug out and bottomed off a nice hole to fit it in. Only, it was getting on a bit, by the time I'd finished. I had the Dogs and horses to feed, so I thought I'd give it best for now. Come back to it and dig the pipes in the next day.

Trouble is, next day I found This ....!





Lot of fucking good, eh? Made a bleeding paddling pool, haven't I? And, if I leave it like that, it'll just become a breeding place for mosquitoes, of which we have more than enough round here as it is! So, having left it a month or so, to see what might happen (It just filled with even More water!) there's really nothing else for it but to fill the bloody thing back in again.

So much for my bloody Idstone Trap Pit. But, as ye can see; I did do it. Or at least I tried!

Just wondering if I can do anything useful with it now. Maybe use it as a ground level trap cover or something? Possibly. Bit too busy to think about it just now. Other things on .....