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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Possum are easy to catch in a live trap.  When I was very young, I would 
catch them and trade them to a black man for skinned rabbit.  Usually 2 or 3  
possum for one rabbit.  Black people, back then, considered sweet-potato fed 
possum a delicacy.  They have to be caught live and fed sweet potato for a 
few weeks to clean them, not just for fattening them.  They are nasty 
creatures.  Once I saw one crawl out of the rear end of a dead cow.  I could 
catch a possum almost every night in that old wooden live trap.  
Occasionally, I would catch a racoon.  The old black man would take them too, 
and they were worth a lot more than possum, but they had to be dead--coons 
are mean.  
I tried coon one time.  Much like very greasy pork.  ....bobford


--- On Tue, 6/24/08, Lynda <lurine AT softcom.net> wrote:

> From: Lynda <lurine AT softcom.net>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Garden pests, four-legged variety
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 11:10 AM
> Possums out here.  The blooming Humane Societies and rescue
> groups work 
> overtime to save the blooming things.  In some areas the
> roads look like 
> they are paved in them and they still keep multiplying!
> 
> Another thing I like about living up here.  There
> aren't any!
> 
> Lynda
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Gene GeRue" <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
> 
> 
> > As many gardeners know, the better the soil one
> creates, the more
> > attractive to certain pests. In my case, moles and
> armadillos. To
> > thwart the moles I am conducting an
> experiment--putting all of my
> > urine onto the sod area at the top of the nearly
> perfect kitchen
> > garden directly out from the kitchen window. The
> results of that
> > experiment are as yet unknown but appear promising.
> >
> > Next up are the armadillos. Thanks to Texans who
> protected them--grr-- 
> > and Midwest warming, they have overpopulated their
> southern habitat
> > and have moved north. When I came here thirty years
> ago no one had
> > ever seen one in the county. They are now one of the
> common roadkills,
> > joining turtles, coons, possums, skunks and squirrels.
> Insufficient
> > numbers are killed by cars and they have overrun
> woods, pastures,
> > lawns and gardens.
> >
> > When Dax was alive he and Benny would run them down
> and Dax would one-
> > crunch them--over forty-five in a two-month period.
> Benny is now
> > twelve and spends most of every night resting for the
> hard day
> > following, which consists mostly of resting in a cool
> place. Yes, I
> > need a couple of pups.
> >
> > After replanting the devastated kitchen garden several
> times I bought
> > two-foot fence and a bunch of three-foot metal posts
> and installed the
> > fence on all parts other than the raised stone wall in
> the front. They
> > pushed under the fence. I replanted and installed pins
> of scrap wood
> > and nails, driving the bottom of the fence into the
> ground. They found
> > a weak place. I replanted. I then spent the better
> part of a day
> > loading, hauling and placing rocks--too heavy for them
> to move with
> > their hoglike thick neck muscles--at the outside
> bottom of the fence.
> >
> > Three mornings now without having to replant the
> garden. Unless they
> > learn how to climb or fly I think it is good. Now I
> have only to
> > occasionally straighten up the grass clippings that
> serve as a mulch
> > to keep weeds down out from the rocks; they still make
> their nightly
> > rounds and hope springs eternal.
> >
> > Thinking I have now created a garden fortress, I
> stepped out yesterday
> > afternoon to see a rabbit leap down from the wall and
> run away. He had
> > spotted the waning lettuce and couldn't resist.
> Sigh.
> >
> > I'm thinking maybe a welded-wire roofed cage with
> quarter-inch
> > hardware cloth affixed on the interior and with
> two-foot deep concrete
> > footings and a padlocked entry gate.
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> 
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