"Creature of the Night" = 4 for 4 Me = zip
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| This guy is smarter than me |
It is pretty humiliating to think that a creature that roams around at night and eats garbage is smarter than me. Sadly, I have set out a humane trap 4 nights in a row and caught a big fat zippo. This doesn't count my attempts a few weeks ago with a friend's trap. "Billy the Exterminator" must have some secret to baiting traps. How does he always get it on his first try. Selective editing? I guess we can add "Billy" to the growing list of things "Smarter than Frazzled Mom". I tried cat food with the ever enticing fancy Angus hot dog pieces. Nothing. Apples and peanut butter. I sprinkled apple cider vinegar on the trap to disguise it. I covered it with branches and leaves and grass. Nope. I even put some peanut butter on a small piece of bread in front of the trap. He didn't even touch it.
So just to keep you up to speed, the list looks like this:
1. Billy the Exterminator
2. Creature of the Night
...
54. Me
It doesn't help that I have no idea what this thing is. I do know that it loves my broccoli plants. It has to be kinda tall because it bent over my 2 foot high broccoli plants and helped itself to the beautiful heads of broccoli. It has also eaten all the leaves off of my baby pepper plant and loves my lettuce and parsley. He has taken various bites out of my cabbage and cauliflower. He has also eaten some of my hottest peppers so my garlic pepper spray is like a delicious condiment for him. "Mmmmm... she spiced it up for me tonight." Arggggg... I have taken to covering the favored plants at night. He has taken to finding a new favorite. He can climb because he uses my trellis nets as a ladder. The nets have been torn away at the poles they are tied to. These nets are strong so this guy is FAT! I haven't found any scat. Not that I could identify it by the scat. The handles were torn clean off my plastic garden bucket. Now I'm starting to think it is a raccoon. A very smart raccoon.
My husband tells me that his grandfather used to sit out at night with a gun to shoot the rabbits that were eating his garden. Am I coming to this? "Shots fired! Shots fired!" "No, its just Frazzled Mom protecting her peas." The very thought of me sitting outside with a shotgun across my lap is just spooky. Not gonna do it. My husband tells me that whatever it is must have been trapped before and is avoiding this trap. How do you catch something smarter than you? Get smarter. Or get Billy the Exterminator.
It doesn't help that I have no idea what this thing is. I do know that it loves my broccoli plants. It has to be kinda tall because it bent over my 2 foot high broccoli plants and helped itself to the beautiful heads of broccoli. It has also eaten all the leaves off of my baby pepper plant and loves my lettuce and parsley. He has taken various bites out of my cabbage and cauliflower. He has also eaten some of my hottest peppers so my garlic pepper spray is like a delicious condiment for him. "Mmmmm... she spiced it up for me tonight." Arggggg... I have taken to covering the favored plants at night. He has taken to finding a new favorite. He can climb because he uses my trellis nets as a ladder. The nets have been torn away at the poles they are tied to. These nets are strong so this guy is FAT! I haven't found any scat. Not that I could identify it by the scat. The handles were torn clean off my plastic garden bucket. Now I'm starting to think it is a raccoon. A very smart raccoon.
My husband tells me that his grandfather used to sit out at night with a gun to shoot the rabbits that were eating his garden. Am I coming to this? "Shots fired! Shots fired!" "No, its just Frazzled Mom protecting her peas." The very thought of me sitting outside with a shotgun across my lap is just spooky. Not gonna do it. My husband tells me that whatever it is must have been trapped before and is avoiding this trap. How do you catch something smarter than you? Get smarter. Or get Billy the Exterminator.
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