The Maple Syrup Secret

Some of you may thing this cruel, but listen first before you judge.

Woodchucks have lived on my little piece of 100 x 100 property for a long time. As do rabbit, deer, skunks, possums, squirrels, birds....and I live in a city.

I don't mind their passage through my yard, though they have decimated my crops from time to time as well as my flowers. Sometimes I have to clean up after them; especially the deer like to poop on the lawn. No biggie. We deal.

But when the woodchucks too up residence by my side porch and dug a HUGE hole along the foundation of my house, my eyebrows were raised. Constant dirt on my steps, a hole getting bigger and bigger.

Then there was the weird smell by the end of last summer. I scoured my back porch for any little turds that may have dropped off my long hair cat. Moved everything to make sure some piece of fish or food did not drop off a plate, and looked in every bag/container to make sure that there was nothing organic in them. Nada. Clean as a whistle.

Over time it got worse. I couldn't even stand to go out there.

I am figuring it was the woodchucks using somewhere in their dens as a toilet, and that somewhere was under my porch. Also, the giant hole along side of my house has to be filled in somehow as it can damage the foundation.

So after many feeble attempts by Larry to catch the WC, I decided yesterday to take over. I dumped out the old food and knew that I had to up the ante on what we were feeding it. Since it had available a very lovely compost pile and a variety of plants in gardens, he was not going to go after just any old food. I gathered some lovely lettuce leaves, sprinkled it with a generous amount of maple syrup, and reset the Have a Heart trap.

While I was working in the studio, I heard the dogs going crazy, and heard some strange whistling noises. My head shot up from my work and I wondered.....

Out in the cage was a very upset woodchuck. I had gotten him. Later on Larry and Dick took him for a long ride on state property far from houses, farms, but full of great food sources. They have to be relocated over 10 miles from their den, which is what we did. And if it was a female with babies, they are on their own by now, so that they won't die in the den. And if there are more, I will have to trap them.

And now to fill the hole. I think I have some huge rocks and gravel in a container, but I don't think that will fill a 2-3' hole that goes for a long ways.

I hope that this is the end of my trapping days, but woodchucks beware...I have more lettuce and maple syrup.......and am not afraid to use it!

Patti O Trapper