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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >James, when you start talking Deepak Chpopra and Ayurvedic thinking you 
> venture into areas beyond by beliefs, not to say mine are correct; I just 
> don't 
> believe in such things . 

The beginning of wisdom is when one realizes that our staunch unquestioning 
deference to 'science' is also just something we believe in.  It is a closed 
loop that only accepts itself as validation of itself.  What are the odds 
that 
it ends up appearing to be valid??


> >I have heard of placing pieces of black hose-pipe (to look like snakes); 
> is this what you had in mind? 

No, noting of the sort. Before adopting the thread method, I used to shoot 
several crows during the winter and put them in the freezer.  Then at the 
critical time I'd hang one up in the corn field (several if there was a big 
field of 
several plots) and the crows avoid an area that smells of dead crow.  It' s 
maginally effective.

Someone described to me a crow trap based on the principle that a crow need a 
certain amount of space above it to take off.  It's a sort of pup-tent shaped 
affair 6' tall with an opening 1' wide and as along as the trap on the top 
and covered with rusted poultry wire elsewhere.  The idea is that the crow 
drops 
in to get the corn and can't get airborne to get out.

The crows would eat the corn right up to the edge of the trap, but NONE of it 
in the trap.  No variation or disguising of the affair would tempt them to go 
in.  There is a built in savvy in a crow to avoid places it can't get out of.

So the idea is this.  The crow can't actually see the black thread but due to 
air passing over the thread, it's vibration, or just mysticism (and little 
odds which), the crow perceives it as a trap.  The first year I put up stakes 
3' 
high every 10' or so in the corn filed and strung the string random among 
them.  It works but you can't hoe the young corn.  After seasons of 
experimentation, I find that corn rows 4' apart need only one stake at each 
end of the row 
and one thread about 30" high and the crows will in no wise go into the corn 
field.  You can even put corn on the ground between rows and they won't go 
there.

These past two years I've had to thin the corn rather than replant it.


James