March 1, 20224 yr Frosty; I find no problems having a cute kitten playing with my beard braids while I hoist a battle ax in my free hand.
March 2, 20224 yr Of course not Thomas, all kittens are cuteness any blacksmith appreciates and pampers but the new guys don't know that. <SHEESH!> Do you have a Mainecoon kitten to stay in character? Hmmmm, If in another life someone convinces me to wear a kilt I'll have to acquire a kitten and name it Sporran. Frosty The Lucky.
March 7, 20224 yr Not a pet; but a previous shop inhabitant; relocated to the wilds as of an hour ago. I was cleaning out a spot to mount the 220 outlet for my grinder and found a large pile of mesquite beans. Well one would be happenstance. Two is coincidence. Three times is enemy action! I took out 2 5 gallon buckets of mesquite beans, (still more to go) and left a havahart trap in their place. This morning: Now living a life of adventure a couple miles down the road in a place just perfect for a packrat---and with a couple miles of roads, coyotes, dogs and hawks between it and my shop.
March 8, 20224 yr I rebaited and reset the trap yesterday evening; no "takers" so far. I should mention that my outlet will be 4' from the floor, I just had a lot of stuff leaning against the utility pole it will be mounted too and my "guest" had made use of the gap behind the "the leaning tower of stuff"...Definitely a "Mexican Woodrat" to my eye. Unless the mutant rodents have made it out this far...I'm an hour's drive from the Trinity site!
March 8, 20224 yr That MIGHT have been too easy for them. I doubt they'd have trouble climbing a utility pole and once they have a route in their little pea brains they'll keep coming back to it. Good place for a Havaheart and a length of stovepipe around the pole will prevent them climbing it. Are mesquite beans edible? For us human types that is. Frosty The Lucky.
March 8, 20224 yr Yes, they are edible; but I'd rather not use the ones stored by the packrat. The utility poles are inside my shop; I was given 2 40' long ones back when the CoOp was giving used ones away. I was on the list for several years to get them, but the ones I got were in great shape, only in the ground for 10 years out here and then removed when they widened the train tracks. They are good for at least another generation after I'm gone; they just had a rule not to reuse "used" poles. I had them cut into 4 20' sections and they form the supports for my dirty shop extension. 2 20'w x 15'l bents with the last one tying into the end of the clean shop. Sunk 5' down and concreted around and so far haven't budged an inch during our regularly scheduled high winds.
March 8, 20224 yr I'd prefer a different harvesting method than robbing packrat nests myself. How do they taste or are them "survival" food? I recall your utility pole post and beam shop now. The term "utility pole" drew a different image in my mind. I controlled shrews and field mice in the barn with a plastic bucket with about 4" of water and a couple drops of dish soap. A little smear of peanut butter a couple inches down on the inside baited them in. Their claws can't grip plastic and the dish soap breaks the water repellent oils in their fur so they drown quickly. It worked way better than mouse traps but when we rescued a good barn cat I got to stop trapping them. Just being there drove them off. Couldn't have shrews and mice in the goats feed, not and keep healthy goats. The Great Pyrenees Mountain Dog, Buran adopted them, they lived in his barn so he protected the too. I actually found him laying with his forepaws around his food bowl and half a dozen mice eating his food. He looked at me plaintively but it's not in their nature to drive residents off. The barn cat did the trick but boy was Buran conflicted, one of his charges was killing and eating his other charges. I don't know if he ever got over it. Frosty The Lucky.
March 8, 20224 yr Well my Father worked for AT&T, (Bell Labs, Bellcomm, AT&T, etc) and he was fierce about NOT calling them "telephone poles" and as these came from the Electric company....
March 9, 20224 yr The image that came to mind was a utility pole by the shop with power lines and maybe a light on it. Of course holding your shop up is a legitimate utility. Frosty The Lucky.
March 9, 20224 yr You may remember my saga about getting buried electrical lines to my shop; to paraphrase Edna "no poles!"
March 9, 20224 yr Yes I do and when you reminded me that you used utility poles to build your shop the pictures playing in my mind when I read changed. The images that play when I read aren't based much on past writing unless it's a part of the same narrative. When I read a novel I'm not fact checking, I'm visualizing the story. I do the same thing here. The story I'm visualizing as I read is real time. This current change in mental image actually fills my image of your shop out in a more detailed way though probably erroneously. Right now the smell of creosoted utility pole in an enclosure underlays the smell of a metal shop. Coal smoke though not heavy is always present, the smell of hot steel, arc welding rod acetylene and propane, oil gas or diesel maybe both, etc. I live in a vivid world of the written word, it's better in many ways though not so in most. Frosty The Lucky.
March 9, 20224 yr The open gables and general winds keep the shop mainly smelling of dust. .We're starting to get the spring winds here----gusting to 50 to 60 mph some days and my sinuses are staging a clog and drip in; as usual. We had 3 of the 6 feral kitties out watching my Wife water down her raised bed today---she made me find covers for it!
March 10, 20224 yr Maybe make a couple raised feral litter boxes so they're not so interested in the garden. That's why we have carpet covered scratching posts, it keeps our furniture and carpets un-shredded. Sorry no, dry and dusty doesn't fit my mental image at all. Try again. Frosty The Lucky.
April 7, 20224 yr Author There were two wild rabbits around the shop today. If they find out about each other, they may want to start a family.
April 7, 20224 yr I haven't seen one single rabbit since we moved to NC. It is a mystery. Here is a photo of my favorite shop hound. She was a doberman rescue and the most ill mannered crazy dog ever to exist when we first got her. Six months later and five acres of freedom, she started showing her intelligence and loyalty and was the best canine friend I ever had. Her name was Resa. She came from the rescue with the name Raven, we tried to rename her with something close and it worked fine. The rescue said the previous owner had her chained to an old car in the back yard and severely neglected her. Nevermind the tomato slop bucket, it was canning season.....
April 7, 20224 yr MIGHT want to start a family Glenn? Were it around here I can taste the dishes now. Hausenpfeffer mmmmmmm. Dobies are great dogs if raised right and treated well. Fortunately dogs can change with their environment and so long as somebody didn't push her the wrong way . . . Tomato slops? Don't you mean you just cleaned up after the last solicitor knocked at your door? She's a beauty Scott. Rescues make the best family members. Frosty The Lucky.
April 7, 20224 yr Author We raised meat rabbits. They were making baby bunnies faster than we could keep up. Had to buy the book "How to stop raising rabbits". Even then it took a while to cycle through litters in progress.
April 7, 20224 yr Agreed, the only people I know who raised rabbits could talk about nothing but how hard it was to stop without just killing them all. Frosty The Lucky.
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