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Fountains of Wayne- "Welcome Interstate Managers" (2003- S-Curve/Virgin Records)..... Another great album from these guys.... My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
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Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2003 - 5:26 p.m. The first 24 hours of the battle goes to the squirrels. To a male cardinal, too, but more on that later� I didn�t capture anything in the trap by the time I went to bed last night. Not surprising, considering how I set the trap up in front of two of the tree rats. I didn�t think they would hop right into the Havahart in the first few minutes after I set it on the ground. Nothing there at daybreak, either. That is probably good, because if a raccoon managed to squeeze himself into the trap he would be one pissed-off mother. Codeman called around noon, asking about tonight�s dinner (J-Rod�s 23rd birthday dinner at the local Bennegan�s), and I asked him to look out the window to see if anything was captured. Nothing. I pulled up to the curb to park my Hillbilly truck at the usual time (a little after 3, for those new to this �journal�), and was greeted by the sound of a tree rat, cursing me in his special chattering way of communicating. He was positioned about halfway up the ash tree in our front lawn. That only means one thing- he was eating the nectarines. They are far from ripe, so I figured they would stick with the much sweeter peaches down below. The first thing that crossed my mind was wondering if another tree rat was caught in the trap, spooking this one to feed up front instead. No such luck. The trap hadn�t tripped, even though a squirrel had managed to drag the two chunks of sweet corn out of the backside of the trap. This should have happened, because the furry bugger would have to step on the trap�s release to reach the corn. Yeah, like I didn�t know already that these creatures are too smart for their own good. They can solve puzzles to reach a single peanut in a shell (a test set up by a biologist in his back yard years ago showed how, even if he changed the combination of tasks the squirrels needed to do, they could usually figure out what to do in less than 15 minutes. I couldn�t find the information on the web- I read about this several years ago. I did find this very funny study on fishing for squirrels, from Nikolas Gloy and Yasuhiro Endo, members of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University. At least I think they were trying to be funny. But I digress�.) I checked the trip mechanism, and found that it was set to tightly. I could only trip it m by putting a lot of pressure on the platform that sets it loose. That would explain the partially eaten chunk of sweet corn, lying on the ground inches form the trap. And why I still have a full compliment of fruit-stealing critters in my neighborhood. I globed another ear of sweet corn, and then reset the trap so that the slightest pressure on the trap�s trip mechanism will send the door slamming shut. How much you wanna bet if I look outside later tonight, I will see the corn gone and the trap still set? On one of my several-times-a-night, take the dogs outside trip last evening I noticed something moving around inside of the trap. It was the previously mentioned male cardinal. He was far too light to trip the door, and he was sitting on the platform, slowly cleaning the cob of the peanut butter I had applied to it earlier in the day. Good for him- he and his mate build a nest in the backyard every summer (for the past 3 years, anyway), adding song and color to our property. They could even eat a few of the peaches, without drawing my ire� We had to sit through our yearly �refresher course� on what to do if a nuclear power plant ever melts down around us. This is a very boring subject, especially because we aren�t even in the fallout range of anything less than the second coming of Chernobyl. It was even worse (or better, depending on how you look at it) today, because the man how gave the class spoke with the most droning, monotone voice I have ever heard. I was sound asleep in less than 15 minutes. Ended up nodding, off and on, for the next hour. Best nap I have had in months. Didn�t miss anything I hadn�t been exposed to (get it? �Exposed� to?) every year since I started working at NDDOT, 20+ years ago. He was able to send about half of the room into slumber before he finished his presentation. Even Beavis�s head fell forward a couple of times. I swear- if you could get this man to record a audio cassette of his lecture, you could make a fortune selling it as a cure for insomnia�..
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