North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kathleen Christensen" <christen36@shaw.ca>]

I think Doug  W. meant "cow" not "crow". But same idea in a way.

 

I live, and have always lived in the country.  Since I was a youngster we had either one or two beef cows every year.  In the fall my dad would shoot, cleaned and hang them.  After they hang in the barn for a couple of weeks, all the family would cut and wrap meat. A family activity I didn't mind much. To this day he still does this, I help wrap, and he give me some of the meat.

 

I do have a great deal of respect for cows, and I eat them. But I don't enjoy the idea of the butchering (killing) at all.  I like to keep my killing to a minimum.  For instance I had a big mole problem for years in the lawn, made me very frustrated. Then I realized that, just like the  prairie dogs on the Plains the moles kept the earth in my rather large lawn aerated.  In the old days buffalo would crush the soils of the plains, and if not for the Prairie dog aerating the soil, the Plains would couldn't grow the grasses it did. I have a heavy wet clay soil here and I now realize moles help my grass grow better, and they probably help the drainage too (and they eat crane fly grubs!). Good thing I don't have gophers though, or my horses might stumble over the holes.

 

So I realized the mole holes were just a cosmetic thing really. And now I have the bonus of using the soil they push up in my garden beds. That's a plus. I just have to place some grass seed where the holes were.

 

I think there probably isn't any bonus to having squirrels. Live a let live is the closest I can get in this regard. The squirrels love my plums, but once I grew a second tree beside the one I already had I hardly missed the plums they took (Maybe 1/3 of one tree), and they never do any permanent damage to my fruit trees (unlike the deer!). But for me this is much easier than killing them. Once you decide to kill them you have to keep killing to keep the populations down. I find pruning two trees instead of one quite easy. I think it would take more energy out of me to trap those pesky rodents.

 

I guess what I'm saying is once you consider an animal your enemy you get mad (I did, and still do many times) instead of thinking of alternatives.  Granted alternatives don't always exist, but co-exist would be my very first choice these days, and it's very often less work in the long run as well. 

 

K. Christensen.

 

BC Canada