More raccoons .and. Potato diggers

My sister's new landscaping was getting demolished.

The landscaping consisted of a raised island of sandy-fill topped with top-soil. Her goal was to make the island well enough drained to plant Redbuds and Rose-of-Sharon. This island is a scant 50' from the edge of a lake. 

She sweet-talked her husband into putting out some game-cams to identify the culprit which visited every night.

It turns out that the culprit is a raccoon and he/she seemed very interested in the eggs the turtles were burying in that beautiful, easy-to-dig loam and sand so very close to the edge of the lake. I didn't try to convince her that euthanizing the raccoon is the preferred option. She is set on trapping it and having her husband relocate it.

Deer damage in the fenced garden

Expected but not hoped for.

A potato plow

One of these came up for sale on Craigslist

I bought it.

The gentleman volunteered, with no prompting "Being able to grow potatoes will be a good thing if the internet goes down and the trucks stop running."

Mrs ERJ (my navigator) asked for clarification.

He said "Most folks only have three days of food in their house. If the trucks stop running then you aren't going to want to be in the city." He is approximately 27 miles from the center of a metro area with a population of about 1.1 million people.

Obviously, he is a kindred spirit.

I asked why he was selling the plow.

He said that he had explored an equipment rental business that specialized in small-holding sized equipment. The dream died when his insurance company quoted the liability insurance premium.

Great business idea. It might be worth talking to a good attorney and exploring LLCs. Also having that attorney write up contracts that explicitly nullify liability if the user modifies the safety features in any way, shape or form.

I once paid a kid to mow my grass. After he was done, I went out and found that he had stripped all of the plastic "shielding" off of the mower.

When I asked why he had done that, he replied "We always do that. That shit always clogs up with grass and it slows me down when I have to stop and clean it out."

True story.

Anyway, if anybody knows of a ready-made, reverse cow-catcher for this kind of plow...I want to know about it. Potato diggers often have a weir or grating behind the foot of the plow. The weir allows the dirt to drop through and the potatoes are pushed along the length of the weir and drop on top of the dirt behind the unit where they are easy to pick up.

First day of digital news detox

Suddenly, it seems like I have three more hours of usable daylight.

And I have a wife. She seems like she has a perfectly peachy personality. I am thankful for whoever arranged that marriage.  I owe them a solid favor.

Rain, ducks and a back-up plan to deal with snails

 

Looking at the weather forecast, tomorrow looks like a good day for tilling-and-planting. The soil should be dry enough to till and you cannot beat natural rain for getting seeds (both garden and weed seeds, unfortunately) off to a grand start.

My goal for tomorrow is to get the nursery emptied out and the plants in dirt, in garden rows.

Duck update

They ate very little of the feed I put out yesterday. That probably means they were gorging on slugs, snails, earthworms and centipedes that had been hunkered-down in the dirt waiting for the dry-spell to end.

This Plague of Snails has me re-thinking my cover-crop strategy. My guess is that snails and slugs thrive in the cool-damp of spring and fall and my cover-crops are super-charging their populations.

I normally plant cool-season, edible plants for my fall/winter/spring cover-crop. Sometimes I plant turnips. Sometimes rye grain. Sometimes oats. Some of my thinking is "Well, if things truly go into the septic-tank, then I still have something edible growing in the garden, even in the off-season."

The obvious answer would be to skip cover-crops for a couple of years and see if the problem self-corrects. However, cover-crops also scavenge nutrients that would otherwise be leached out by the rains and snow-melt...and they add organic matter to the soil when tilled into it.

Another possibility is to plant edible plants that have leaves that are high in oxalates. Some biologists hypothesize that retaining toxic, partially metabolized molecules like oxalic acid provide some level of protection against browsing. Those toxic compounds might impair plant growth but the protection they provide more than compensates for the penalty.

Rumex fueginus growing in a fen

It is reasonable to speculate that oxalates (insoluble salts of oxalic acid and metal ions like calcium or iron) deters snails since "dock" or "sorrel" (Rumex) are one of the few, common, broad-leafed plants in sedge-marshes.

I have no proof that this would work but calcium oxalate is highly irritating due to its sharp crystals and free oxalic acid (the "sour" in sorrel) will out-compete the carbonate ion for calcium ions, thus depriving the snail of the material it needs to grow its shell. 

In addition to Rumex, edible plants that have leaves with relatively high oxalate content include Buckwheat, Swiss Chard, Beets and Spinach. Only the last three plants tolerate frost. Oxalate content in greens can be reduced by boiling in water and then discarding the water. Oxalate can contribute to kidney stones and that is something most people would prefer to avoid.

So far, the ducks are doing a great job on the snails but I am a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. One neighbor dog getting into the garden enclosure could kill them all in less than five minutes.  

Taking a vacation from news, work-ticket

I decided that I need a one-week vacation from news. A "fast", if you prefer.

That means that I will also be watching fewer videos because the news keeps sneaking into them.

A fellow from Switzerland purchased a combine/harvester in northern Holland and then drove it back home through Netherland, Belgium, France and Switzerland. It took him weeks since his top-speed was 11 miles per hour.

Note the castle in the background on the left side of the frame. Not scenery you will see in Michigan.

Driving through cities was harrowing, especially since the visibility from his seat wasn't all that whippy.

One thing I will say about Europe is that their near-paranoia about food-security means that they are exceptionally tolerant about machines that harvests food causing traffic jams. As recently as 1950 getting enough calories every day was a serious challenge in much of war-torn Europe.

37 minute run-time. Auto-dubbed in English. BTW, he got about 4.7 mpg.

Work-ticket

I spent an hour-and-a-half cutting green bamboo. Mrs ERJ assisted. She carried the stems and didn't allow the cut-ends to get any closer than 9 inches (2.3e+9 Angstrom in metric) to the ground lest they strike root and start growing again.

I planted two watermelons at Southern Belle's and four more in my garden. Southern Belle's green beans look better than mine. Next year I will not plant mine as early. They just stall-out and become food for pests.

Her potatoes and the first planting of sweet corn are up. 

I collected my post driver and used it to drive in T-posts in the Hill Orchard. I then used those posts to secure cages to protect trees from deer. 

Upon arriving home in Eaton Rapids I measured the distance between loops on a 160 body-grip trap springs and learned that it is 8" from outside of loop-to-outside of loop. I had some three-year-old hazelnut stems and one of them had a promising Y. I cut the Y long and used baling twine to pull it in to exactly 8". I also have the option of inserting a stick between the wraps of baling twine and twisting it to pull it even more if that is warranted.

A very small side-project was to make "medicated" wipes. Boric acid is a mild fungicide and stops bacterial growth. I made a 100 ml of saturated boric acid solution (it is a very mild "acid" with a pH of about 5) and added it to a 400 gram package of pre-moistened wipes. I make no claims about this being a great way to deal with superficial, external Candida skin infections but it isn't likely to do any harm and it is inexpensive.

Total time-on-task was just a little over two hours.

A few of the peony divisions I planted in the Upper Orchard were blooming.

The names of the varieties are unknown, but that doesn't make them any less pretty.

A squash seedling. It looks quite smug, self-assured and pleased with itself. An inch of rain will do that for a plant.

 

Raccoon population densities

According to the RainDrop website, the Upper and Hill Orchard received a little bit more than an inch of rain. Eaton Rapids got about 0.8". So, I am pretty happy right now.

Raccoon population density

According to a study done in Western Tennessee, the main variables in population density varied by season. They evaluated 26 variables that might be important.

In the summer, there were only three variables had significant signal-to-noise ratios:

Closeness to permanent water -and- presence of cover expressed as total stump area were virtually tied at 0.35 correlation coefficients with distance to road listed at 0.23 correlation coefficient.

During the winter, the researcher's data tagged six variables.

Number of food plant species led the list with a correlation coefficient of 0.49. Number of total dens and number of tree dens were both 0.38 although the number of total dens had a negative sign...which I cannot explain. Closeness to potential water had a coefficient of 0.25. Basal area of large trees had a coefficient of about 0.2 but that might be related to the fact that only old, large trees have tree dens. Basal area of small trees had a coefficient of about 0.15...presumably because brush reduces wind-speed at ground level.

Satellite image of suburbs in Maryland that are laced with raccoon travel corridors

I think it is worth noting that urban and semi-urban areas check a lot of the bases for winter survival. They have abundant buildings that can provide shelter. Landscaping and discarded food provide abundant food. The only real hazards in urban areas are traffic and diseases like distemper. Urban areas built in hilly-terrain often have green-belts in the areas that flood thus providing safe travel corridors.

Populated rural areas offer abandoned vehicles and outbuildings for shelter while gardens, orchards, livestock food and pet-food provide food. Some people consider wild raccoons "their pets" and feed them.

Urban and populated rural areas often have raccoon population densities that are 10X unpopulated rural areas. It is not unheard-of for a trapper to take twenty raccoons out of a barn owned by a hobby-farmer. Upper estimates of raccoon population densities in urban/suburban areas approach 400 animals per square-mile.

Wisdom is knowing when to settle for "It works"

 

Of course Mr Raccoon came back last night. Luckily, he didn't chew the hose to shreds.

Sometimes it is advisable to have a quiet way to euthanize an animal caught in a trap. The three-minute video linked above shows one way to do it. Trappers call it a "dispatch pole".  All it takes is a 160 body-grip trap (a.k.a. a Conibear trap) and a long, forked stick. It makes less noise than a pellet gun discharging.

 Another option. Five minute video. Link to mounting clip he used

Watering

The weather-guessers promised us 0.4" of rain. Maybe we will get it.

I watered last night anyway.

The darker brown in the background is where I was watering. Lighter dirt is not wet

Potatoes will survive in dry soil but they thrive when you pamper them by never letting the soil get crispy-dry. You cannot let the soil moisture levels fluctuate wildly if you want smooth, uniformly shaped, not-lumpy potatoes.

I saw my first Colorado Potato Beetles yesterday. NOT-yippie!

Work-ticket

Today's work-ticket was to move two brush piles that were getting in the way of cutting the grass. The total area was about 600 square-feet. That is not a lot of area in the overall scheme of things, but it disrupted the orderly management of the areas around them.

This is where the north brush-pile was.

 

This is where I dragged the brush to

It took two-and-a-half hours to yank the brush out of the tall grass and then drag the brush to the swamp and finally mow the cleared areas with a push mower.

One brush-pile as 40 yards from where I was dumping the brush. The other as about 90 yards.

I really wanted to burn the brush in-place. It irks me to have nutrients migrate away from where they can be used and end up in a swamp where they are of less direct benefit. Sometimes wisdom is knowing when to settle for "It works" rather than hold out for "Optimum".

"...all conservatives are hypocrites and frauds."

I had an interaction with a Progressive late last fall. I have been sitting on the conversation and trying to make sense of it.

The woman I was listening to had retired from her jobs at the City of Lansing. She had never worked in private industry. Incidentally, even the supervisors who work for the City of Lansing are unionized. It is an uber-incubator of progressives.

She deduced that I was a conservative. She shared, without prompting, that all conservatives are hypocrites and frauds.

Being a calm and inquiring kind of fellow, I asked how she could know that.

She replied "Every conservative I know claims to have a disability and is working for pay under-the-table."

I asked her where those conservatives worked.

Given her circle of acquaintances, it was difficult for me to envision that she knew many conservatives.

She was more than happy to throw the "proof" on the table. "I know some people who work at a combination gun store/shooting range. Everybody who works there says they have a disability and I am sure they are working for cash under-the-table. Obviously, they are all Conservatives."

Let me comb out the speculation and assumptions that are buried in her declaration.

Disabilities 

One assumption is that Disability = Unemployable and so if a person with a disability is working, they are engaging in fraud.

That might be the holy grail of somebody working for the city: Get a ruling of 100% disability and then get "free-money" for not going to work. But there are many disabilities that don't make it impossible to work.

My "A-ha!" moment was when it occurred to me that most of the people she was interacting with were probably veterans of the military. Working in gun store is a ducks-to-water occupation for many people who were in the military.

Contrary to popular opinion, the rate of veterans with disabilities (29.6%) is virtually identical to the rate for the general population (28.7%)   

The most common VA disabilities in 2025 were:

1. Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
2. Limited range of motion of knee(s)
3. Damage to sciatica nerve
4. Lumbar or cervical strain
5. Hearing loss
6. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
7. Limited range-of-motion arm
8. Limited range-of-motion ankle
9. Scars and burns
10. Migraines 

I see only one disability that makes working at a shooting range a bad-fit. That job is compatible with all of the other disabilities as long as accommodations are available in terms of chairs/stools/lifting-aids and scheduling to limit time standing.

Cash-under-the-table 

The other statement "...I am sure they are working for cash under-the-table..." is suspect. How can she be sure? What business would run the risk of hiring such a large portion of their staff off-books, especially a high-visibility business like a gun store. I cannot see any gun store risking their insurance, their business license and risking of high-profile litigation by putting a not-on-books-employee behind the gun counter. Doing that also exposes the business to risk of prosecution for Federal felonies because that "ghost" is instrumental ensuring the fidelity of 4473 form documents. 

The reason I bring this up

You might find yourself in a similar conversation in the future. I wish I had the facts lined up to undermine that woman's absolute certainty. Maybe you can do better.

Hoes, Vermin and Carrots

I have at least three hoes. By pure chance, I grabbed my least-favorite hoe for hilling the potatoes. Mrs ERJ had claimed the light-weight, hoe with the red handle. The weeding hoe was behind some shovels.

This hoe is relatively heavy and awkward. Standing on end, the end of the handle is an honest 66" above the ground. The cutting or steel end of the hoe is large and cumbersome. 

And it hills potatoes like a dream. The long handle means that I can drag dirt with the handle at an optimum angle and NOT have to bend over. The big blade means that it moves a lot of dirt in each drag. I can hill one side of 50' of potatoes in two-minutes flat. Of course the dirt was recently till so it was light-and-fluffy, but still, that is a right-smart clip for an old man doing that kind of work.

Yep, another case of different horses for different courses. 

Something raided the duck-coop last night

You can see digging to the left and right of the chunk of firewood

 

Whatever the beast was, it was able to pull out enough eggs to satisfy its hunger and didn't molest the ducks. I was lucky.

 But it will be back. Easy meals will not be passed up.

As luck would have it, I have some wire shelving from a freezer. I dug a trench, laid in the wire "fence" and refilled with packed dirt. To the right of the shelving, I buried chunks of firewood to slow down digging.

 

I also installed a dog-proof raccoon trap and will bait it with a bit of scrambled eggs. It isn't like I don't know what they are hungry for.

Carrots

I have never been successful with carrots. I attribute it to operator apathy.

Carrot seeds are tiny and germinate slowly. The seedlings need frequent, gentle weeding for at least four weeks. Tedious work!

I decided to give it another go.

Reviewing previous failures, one of them is losing-the-row. Weeding is much faster if you know where your crop is not. To mark exactly where I sowed the seed, I added some kale seeds and planted a bush-bean every 2' along the row. You can use any fast-germinating seeds instead of kale...radishes and turnips work very well but the kale seeds were the first suitable seeds that I found.

Carrot seeds are tiny and resent being planted too deeply. I used the hoe to make a furrow and sprinkled the seeds into the very bottom of it. Then I poured a stream of water in to wet the soil and to gently stir it a bit.

Then I laid some cut poke-weeds over the top to delay the soil crusting over. 

Most catalog pictures are too perfect. This one is accurately depicts what I hope to harvest if I do my part. Image from here

For the record, I planted 50 feet of Red-Cored Chantenay variety carrots. RCC is primarily a "processing" or cooking carrot. It produces stubby, tapered carrots that get girthy toward the end of the growing season. It is a carrot designed for stews and juicing and is more forgiving of rocky or clay soils than the more elegant, lady-finger shaped carrots.

A very well grown row of Chantenay carrots can yield up to a pound of carrots per foot of row.

Pottage

AI slop? Maybe.

Pottage, how Medieval families "cooked".

Carrots, potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, onions, beans, lentils, cracked grain, road-kill, fish, cabbage, greens, dumplings... It is all good.