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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Here at Heartwood the armadillo invasion has reached affronting  
conditions. Daily one is appalled at the plethora of tiny-to- 
substantial craters where one walks or views. The better the soil,  
the greater the depredation.

These conditions can no longer be countenanced; it is clearly time  
for action. Contemplating potential plans, one wishes for another  
Dax, perhaps two of his one-crunch abilities. Alas, that plan will  
have to sit on the shelf for now.

A week or three ago Benny and I teamed up and blew away one of the  
armored marauders. That action ill becomes a plan due to the need to  
interrupt one's sleep to do the action. Next?

Having acquired a modicum of diller decimation details I have now  
implemented a plan. I have set two live traps, facing east and west,  
against the stone wall that creates the Christina garden. One against  
the wall, with a big oak plank angled out and braced by a step ladder  
lying against it. The other sits against the first but facing the  
other direction, with a second step ladder encouraging shuffles into  
the trap entrance.

Two nights, two catches.

Next issue, disposal. Holding to the permaculture perogative that any  
item best serves multiple purposes, I have decided to conduct  
scientific research. Well, okay, pseudo-scientific.

I have long read that armadillos, on encountering a body of water in  
their travels simply hold their breath and walk across the bottom to  
the other side. As it was in writing I of course held this to be the  
truth.

So here's my report. Immersed in the stream, the first armadillo held  
its breath for 3.5 minutes, the second for 4 minutes, for a pseudo- 
average of 3.75 minutes.

So far, it seems to me that the person who first wrote the business  
about dillers holding their breath and meandering across the river  
bottom, and whose words have since been spread far and wide, either  
had been drinking or had a fisherman's tendency or had observed the  
activity at a very narrow stream.

Further research will be reported.