Saturday, September 24, 2011

Groundhog Day - 9/24






After three weekends, I finally live trapped the groundhog which was living under my storage shed.  I have tried placing the trap at various locations around the shed and tried different baits with no success.  I finally found the right combination of location, bait, and timing.  The trap was placed on the left side of the shed.  I used Gala Apples and dehydrated bananas from Trail Mix that I bought from Aldi.  I set the trap around 9:00AM, with plans to go grocery shopping in the AM.  As usual, I got distracted, and the Pitt game was on TV at 12 Noon.  I looked outside and there it was, in the trap.

I was not sure how sturdy the cage was, so I wanted to relocate the groundhog as soon as possible.  I lined the trunk of my car with a tarp, cardboard, and newspaper, in case the animal got nervous and completed a bodily function.  I read you should cover the cage with a towel so the groundhog will not get nervous - I used a black T-shirt.  Lifting the cage, then carrying the cage was difficult, as the animal got nervous and was moving and clawing inside the cage.  I finally got it in the trunk and drove to North Park.  For the first five minutes of the drive, I could hear the groundhog clawing at the cage.  I found a good spot to release it and again carrying the cage while the animal was moving got on my nerves.  I placed the trap on the ground, and opened the trap door.  I tapped the other end of the cage and the groundhog bolted right out the door into the woods.

I have not read that they are social animals, so hopefully there was only one groundhog under the shed.  I have read that the mother has babies in the spring, and the babies eventually leave the burrow when they are ready.  I am going to reset the trap Sunday morning (and Monday too since I am taking off work) to make sure there was only one groundhog.

My work is not done.  I have to block access on all four sides of the shed.  With winter coming and the amount of daylight getting shorter, I have some work to do.

Happy Groundhog Day!

 


Friday, September 02, 2011

New Wheels
















My big news since my last post is my new Do It Yourself Home Built PC. Here are the specs:

Power supply: Corsair TX750 V2
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth p67
CPU: i5-2500k, 3.3 GHz
Cpu cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus
RAM: Corsair 4 x 2GB
Dvd drive: Lite-On Ihas324
Hard Drive: Western Digital 1 TB, 6.0Gb/s
Video Card: XFX HD 6770

This is a huge jump in technology compared to my old PC which is over 11 years old. My old PC only has a 667 MHz processor, and the maximum amount of RAM it can have is 768 MB. I am very happy now.