Trego's Mountain Ear

Well, technically the beast is a Columbia Ground Squirrel – but it has moved in at a time of my infirmity – as I use a walker to get the left knee back into shape, pretty much confined to the porch and first floor, the gopher has moved into the garden. And he goes down the row, eating the peas down to ground level.

Fifty or sixty years back, I was trying for gopher control in the same location, and I accidentally trapped a lactating badger by her front foot. I had heard all the stories about how dangerous a badger could be in close – but when I knew she had little ones, leaving her trapped didn’t seem right. So I got her where she pulled the trap and chain as far from the stake as I could, and as she strained against the trap, I used a stick to take the tension from the jaws of the trap, and she pulled loose. I picked up the rest of the gopher traps, and felt good for the rest of the day.

The next day I was back with the 22, shot a gopher, and she bit it, backed off, and apparently made the decision: “This guy helped me when I was trapped, and now he’s helping me catch gophers while my foot hurts. He’s OK.” I spent six weeks or so that summer shooting gophers for my badger companion. I don’t imagine we were ever much closer than 20 yards or so. We probably hunted together no more than 40 times – but it turned into one of my more fun hunting experiences.

So I’m thinking of my badger buddy as I try to come up with a plan to get the gophers out of my garden. In the old days, I would have bummed a bit of 1080 – but my new world doesn’t allow such lethal formulas to its citizenry. I remember that I own 3 gopher traps – but I don’t remember where I stashed them. I could borrow a trap from a friend, and build a mini-fence around the gopher hole – but that would be a lot easier with a working left knee. It looks like my solution is going to be these green bait bars in a bait station

Fortunately, I have the internet and amazon prime available. By the time I can get out to the garden again, I’ll have my green bait bars and bait station. It’s been a good problem to have – remembering the mother badger that was once my hunting companion.