Swimming Hole

 

The Northerns have been using this tired old kiddie pool in the duck run for years. It's not suited for the job and is in poor shape. Time for a replacement.

 

One hundred and ten gallon stock tank; four times the capacity of the kiddie pool.

The salesman that helped NorthernDaddy toss it up on the roof didn't even bat an eye - he said it wasn't even close to the weirdest thing he's loaded. (That honor would go to the roto-tiller he strapped to a pallet and forklifted to the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle!)

 Needed some pressure-treated lumber in six and four-foot lengths. Problem - Lowes sells pressure treated in a minimum of twelve feet. Solved - take a tape measure and hand saw and cut to length in the parking lot! Four hundred and fifty pounds of gravel just fits into the trunk (and jams the struts to the bump stops).

 

NorthernDaddy is getting better at digging. He used to hate digging; now he only severely dislikes it.

 

 The design concept was to position the pool, surround it with stone (to hopefully cut down on mud in the pool), and build a ramp for the ducks to enter the pool. The ramp is covered with hardware cloth - the theory being that the grass will grow up through the holes, allowing the ducks to eat the top of the grass without digging up the roots or turning the area into a mud pit.

 So there you have it - NorthernDaddy's newest duck house improvement.

 

So far, the ducks (who have a deep distrust of anything new) have refused to use the ramp or the pool...

Bottled Up

 

After all of the posts on ridding the yard of varmints and vermin, our readers might think that all the Northerns do is kill furry animals. NorthernDaddy would like to assure you that is not the case (but, did he mention that NorthernDaddy and LittleNortherner have also gotten rid of more than fifteen chipmunks in the last few weeks?).

 

When not whacking small creatures, the Northerns like to try new ventures. NorthernMommy has been crafting a dandelion wine. Today it was bottled!

 

 

Let it age in the bottle for a few months, then bottoms up!

 

 



Sucker for a Marshmallow...

 

Bandit goes down....

 

Rats!

 

Judging from the title, what did you expect?!

 

 

Just another unwanted visitor in the chicken coop.

 

 

He's no longer with us....

 

 

 



Bandit Update

 

 A quick glance at the trap this morning was enough to let NorthernDaddy know that he had not caught any thieving furballs. The marshmallow bait was missing, but the trap was still set.

 

Pulling the photos from the trail camera brought up these beauties:

Mr. Bandit strolls through in the middle of the night, followed about forty minutes later by Stinky.

 

Neither of them wanted to get locked up in the trap - but someone took the bait...

 

Tonight's trap set is baited with marshmallows again, but this time, they're hanging from a wire just past the trigger plate.

 

Will it catch Bandit?

 

(NorthernDaddy just looked over this post again, and noticed something about the trap up in the first photo....it might be too small. That is one big raccoon - he might have to duck his head and scootch down just to get in the opening. Might have to get the bigger trap....)

 

 

 

 



Modeling Clay

NorthernMommy got a whole bunch of Play-Doh® (that is the only time you'll see it referred to as that trade name - NorthernDaddy has too hard a time trying to remember how to get that circled-R trademark symbol to show up) the other day, and - of course - it had to be played with.

 

LittleNortherner wanted to sculpt a car, and insisted that Daddy do so, too.

Little's car is a bit smooshed and, um, unique. Daddy's car is a flashy pink, and sporty!

 

 

Next, it was on to creating animals...

 

NorthernDaddy made this nifty pink rattlesnake with orange fangs.

 

LittleNortherner crafted a .......whale. (Kid you not - that is what he's calling it.) (Rodin, he is not.)

Chicken Thief

 

Looking back at the previous posts, it appears that NorthernDaddy neglected to write about the raccoon that decimated the Northerns' chicken flock.

 

This Spring, NorthernMommy and Daddy decided to butcher the chicken flock. The birds were getting older, laying less eggs, and one or more of the hens was eating what few eggs were being laid. Time to fill the freezer and start over with a new run of chicks.

 

The new chicks were brought home, and housed in the brooder (back of the pick-up truck, again) until they (quickly) outgrew their living space. Then it was time for them to move out to the big house and learn how to live in a real chicken's home. They did quite well for a few weeks, until they had a visitor. Their visitor came for dinner, and invited seven of the chicks to the party.

 

Based on the crime scene, it appeared that the raider that killed the chicks was either a skunk or a raccoon. (As a side note, if you can read the predator signatures at a kill, you might have been keeping chickens for too long...)

 

One lonely chick remained in the coop. NorthernMommy wanted to move the poor little girl over to live with the ducks in their house, but NorthernDaddy is against mixing bird types (possible spread of disease), and he didn't want the poor chick to get its feathered butt beat down by the mean ol' ducks. He did, however, want to find out for sure what animal was responsible for the slaughter, so he set up the trail camera inside the coop.

 

This is what the camera revealed:

That's a photo of a raccoon inside the coop, reaching up to snatch the last of the chicks. Seven killed in one night, one removed the next night. Darn bandit.

 

NorthernDaddy has a new hobby: trapping varmints. He set a trap inside the coop and baited it with cat food. No activity recorded on the camera for more than a week.

 

Moved the camera outside the coop to get an idea of what was prowling the yard.

 

Sunday morning:

Moved the camera again to see if Bandit was visiting the coop. Monday morning:

New tactic: moved the trap outside the coop and baited it with marshmallows. The theory is that the trap being closed inside the coop was spooking the coon, who didn't want to get caught in a confined space. The marshmallows will hopefully attract the raccoon without drawing in any neighborhood cats or skunks (although catching a skunk is also high on the list).

 

Stay tuned for varmint updates....