A Little Funny...

I run into my bee mentor yesterday, a fine old man of 89. I have learned alot from him the past few years, he is like my third Grandpa.

I notice some red on his fingers that looked like blood and asked him "did you cut your self or something"? He looked down and said "Oh that, its just red paint".

He proceed into story mode and explained about all of the troubles he has had with the city squirrels eating his pecans, digging up his garden, and other problems with them. He has been trapping them for years. I had seen a few of them. Some of them ended up in the stew pot, but most he relocated to the Elks Lodge about a mile away. One day after he released a trapped one, he went inside for a beer and sit down next to a retired MDC employee and struck up a conversation. The MDC guy told him he was wasting his time, the squirrel would probably be back home before he got there.

So my mentor had an idea. He was going to test that theory and prove him wrong. That is where the red paint on his hand come from. "I paint the little c suckers red to see if they really return, and I have not seen any of the red ones back in my yard".

That made my day. So if you are ever in my neck of the and see a red latex painted squirrel, you know where they come from.

I hope that 40 years from now I am still going like him.

I thought this was really funny. :lpf:

I had a similar experience when removing some of the local raccoons. I don't mind them being around, but I didn't like them pooping all over the deck near my bird feeders. After catching 7 of them in seven nights, i began to wonder if 3 miles was far enough to remove them. I spray painted the next two blaze orange and was shocked to see how angry a caged raccoon can get. I thought they were cranky, but when one paints a caged raccoon they get to see a whole new level of anger. I have yet to see those two back at the feeder and we no longer have a problem with them, but I have seen a number of them in the woods. Perhaps they learned to steer clear of the deck.

I have seen raccoons and possoms trapped at a chicken farm painted flourescent orange and dropped off at the local country "jukejoint". You should hear some of the stories coming from that place lately!

Maybe being moved wasn't a deterrent, but being painted was. Nothing more embarrassing than to be down by the creek washing your food and the other racoons laugh at your paint job...

I still have not seen any painted squirrels in the yard so the conservation guy must have been wrong..