Man vs. Nature... Part II

Last week, I told you of an epic battle that is taking place in a yard right here in Caledon… a battle between a determined man and an equally determined squirrel. This is an ongoing struggle and I’m sure I’ll be telling you more about it as time goes on.

But today, we’re going to visit another yard in Caledon… and this yard is also under siege. But this time the battle rages between a woman who should know better and raccoon who most assuredly does.

Now public opinion varies widely when it comes to raccoons… there are those who love this wily little rodent and there are those who curse their very existence. Our hero this week (who must remain anonymous because - as my sister - she deserves that small courtesy) falls somewhere in between… she is quick to appreciate the attractiveness and cunning of the small forest creatures whose very name is said to mean “dexterity”.

But as she goes about setting up a new compost bin, she quickly sees the other side of the coin...

Now I know you are sitting there thinking “All this lady has to do is properly install the composter and follow composting “best-practices” and she’ll have no problem.” But therein lies the rub… this poor soul has set up kitchen composters before, and she does it all by the book. She secured the composter by digging it into the earth… she put the right things into it… avoiding meats and cheeses that were sure to attract “pests”… she layered, watered, added earth and organics… she made sure the composter she was using had a secure lid and trap door. She did it all correctly.

But in a matter of hours, the coon’s were into the composter. The yard went from “Better Homes and Gardens” to “Better Haul Away Garbage” in a trice. Unable to open the lid of the composters, the coons had opened the trap door at the bottom and dined on the “patio”, as it were.

The next night, the trap door was secured by 9 inch nails (the spike, not the industrial rock group) and sturdy wire. The coons, undeterred, dug under the composter & chowed down.
Night number three - a roll of chicken wire is buried in the ground around the composter’s perimeter, intended to discourage excavation. And it does… the little beggers simply tip the entire composter over.

Incidentally, we’re not sure how the heck they did this… but my sister… (er - I mean “our hero”) begins to mull over a theory in which the coons might have learned how to start the Bolens... Its at this point that I begin to recognize the tell-tale signs of that same “wilderness obsession” that afflicts all those who grapple with the wild. I sigh, and walk away knowing that another “wildly ingenious” solution is imminent.

• And so, we come to the end of Man vs. Nature (Part II). And although we’ve shared a couple of chuckles, I believe we’ve also learned several things…
  First - humans (at least those around me) tend to be a bit “obsessive-compulsive” when nature issue a challenge;
• Second - if wild animals are to be used as an example, there’s no such thing as an insurmountable problem (that’s a great lesson, I think);
• And third - It’s a lot of fun to sit back and chuckle at someone else’s misadventure’s.

But that begs the question… have you checked your composter lately?
(Photo Credit: Stephanie Sant)

Man vs. Nature... Part I

It is the stuff of legends - the ongoing struggle between man and the wild. This battle - as old as time - is widely fought, and means man must use all of the knowledge, ingenuity and cunning at his disposal to triumph over a force of a nature so powerful, it is virtually unstoppable.

I refer, of course, to the battle to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder. This is a battle that has driven more than one perfectly rational human being to commit acts which confound, confuse (and perhaps even frighten) his family and friends. I’m going to share one such story with you now. Names have been with-held to protect the identity of my father-in-law.

We take you back a number of years, to a winter day shortly after our hero moved to Caledon. The homeowner’s lovely rural property is a scenic, private retreat and he and his wife enjoy the company of natures winged creatures so much they install a bird feeder in their yard.

All is well for a number of weeks but soon, the squirrels discover that a new “all you can eat buffet” has arrived in town. The homeowner is not too concerned. He puts a “squirrel collar” on his feeder, assuming he has put paid to his unwanted seed-poacher. But he has underestimated his adversary…

A few days later, he looks out his kitchen window just in time to witness an acrobatic act worthy of Cirque du Soliel. One of the squirrels has discovered that if he travels far enough out on one of a neighbouring birch tree’s branches, he can generate enough “lift” to launch himself onto the bird feeder, thereby circumventing the offending collar.

The homeowner retaliates by getting busy and giving all of the trees neighbouring the birdfeeder a good, thorough “haircut”, assuming this simple act will thwart his red-coated foe. But alas, he is wrong.

So it goes… over weeks, months, seasons, and years, our hapless hero uses every humane and ingenious idea he can come up with to protect his precious feeder. He employs wider collars, self-closing feeders, motion sensors and noise-makers - all with no success.

But is our hero a beaten man? Never. He now realizes that nothing on the market will work on his particular squirrel - a squirrel so wiley that he will have to manufacture something of his own design, if he ever hopes to win this war.

And so a new battle is begun. The last report we had from the battle front involved the re-engineering of an old metal lamp shade and a complicated system of pulleys, wires and gears which would somehow protect the feeder and dislodge the squirrel, should it try another assault. Still in the planning stages, we are given to understand that this new weapon will be added to the feeder sometime in the next week or so. I should probably mention that the bird feeder is now starting to develop a somewhat “unusual” appearance - something that fits somewhere between “alternative garden art” and “home-made rocket launcher”.

In all of this struggle, there is hair-pulling, fist-shaking and - yes, I suspect a certain amount of questionable language… but there is also a grudging respect for the instinct, cunning and determination that drives the squirrel just as hard as it drives the man.

In the end, we fear it will come down to “nuts”… either the battle with the squirrel will be won and it will return to a diet of them, or the man will eventually lose his battle (and his mind) and be diagnosed as one.

We hope you’ll join us next week for Man vs. Nature, part II.