Wild Kingdom

Here are some of the things about Summer that I hate:

We are in the period of heat and stinking high humidity.  You can hardly breathe at midday.  This morning, I was out using the trimmer before seven a.m.  I worked up a good sweat.

A giant black snake is helping himself to eggs in the chicken house.  Okay, okay... he does a service by keeping the mice and rats down to a minimum.  I suppose he is entitled to a share of the eggs in return.  However, I am sometimes startled by his unexpected presence and I have to look in each nest box before placing my hand inside!

Something has killed and eaten three ducks this week.  I'm thinking a little family of possums or raccoons.  They do us no service that I can recall.

The first kill was through hardware cloth which had been pried loose.  I repaired it and thought all was now safe.  Wrong.  The second kill was through a corner of exterior plywood which was pried loose.  I charged up the drill and drilled holes for the new long stainless steel screws.  I screwed them down with the drill into solid wood supports.  "This is a good repair," I thought.  They cannot pull this apart.

It was not pried loose.  The predator CHEWED A HOLE through the plywood in order to slither through and get the third duck.

These are some clever, determined creatures.  I'll have to place a new piece of plywood over the existing one and screw it down in short sections.  But first:

The remaining ducks will not go into the duck house tonight.  I will set a Havaheart trap with dog food inside with the door of the duck house closed and locked.  They can use their entrance hole to get in.

Will this work?  Who knows.  They'll probably manage to eat the dog food and get away.  Why do I feel like a frustrated old fool trying to outsmart a woodland creature -- or like Sylvester trying to catch Tweety Bird?