After moving the humane trap all over the yard and trying all sorts of tricks designed to baffle the critter it finally decided to go in the trap.
I woke up and let out the dog as usual and all of a sudden I hear his high pitched barking, which means he's in trouble usually, I came running out and sure enough there was the little grey guy in the cage. Armadillo!
I expected it to be all pissed off and mean hissing and ready to bite some one, spitting it's leprosy laden spit every where but it was actually crying. It was so sad. It sounded like umh, umh, umh. I felt so bad for it. but it was better than it digging my whole house up and it wasn't like we killed it. We were just going to relocate it to a better spot. Still I felt guilty here this guy was going about it business of digging up my house and looking for grubs in my yard, (which explains why its so incredible fat. My yard is full of them!) it got stuck in this horrible trap.
I had to go to work and I knew Husband wasn't going to get up till later So despite the risk of possibly getting leprosy I covered the cage with a blanket. In case it got sunny and so it didn't feel so wide out in the open.
When Husband did get up he took it to the forest and let it go. He said it turned and looked at him as if to say good bye before it scurried into the woods.
You can hear the armadillo crying in this video. I hope it found a good spot to hide. I hope it wasn't to traumatized by being in the cage all morning. I wish you well armadillo you weren't as horrible as I'd imagined.
We have been busy lately and our yard has been neglected. Here is a look around at what has popped up despite us.
Here are the flowers Chris planted in memory of his Aunt. They just keep putting out one flower after another.
A friend gave me this plant and I said "That wont ever live. It looks delicate and like it needs lots of care," and look at it now.
This just popped up I don't know what it is. I think we planted it. (Head scratch.) It looks like it will be something pretty.
Blue berries! They are still green but we should have a handful, if the birds don't get to them first.
Here's the armadillo trap. It's latest location is sure to capture that pest. He He! The armadillo is alive and happy and still going in and out from under our porch.
The compost pile. Sad isn't it. It started off as a huge pile of grass clippings and now it it a small pile of hay with grass growing in it. I think the good stuff from the pile has seeped into the sand. Just like when we put 6 giant bags of compost in our garden and the next year it's back to being sand. The armadillo enjoys digging it up every once in a while.
This is a weed that is growing next to the compost pile. I love this weed it grows every where in my yard and has pretty little flowers. I've seen a plant similar sold in the store only with bigger flowers
The bald cypress is alive and well. Every year when the leaves die off I worry that it has actually died. But happily it keeps coming back.
This is another weed that grows in my yard. People buy these too. They are called Lantana and come in all different colors. I don't like the way it smells.
Here is another weed. It's a tiny little daisy. People don't buy these. I don't think they have enough pretty flowers on them to count.
Not sure what kind of flower this is. My aunt gave it to me along with a bunch of other plants. This is one that survived and looks pretty good I don't think it has ever been with out a flower even in the dead of winter.
Aloe Vera plant. It has a pretty flower. Ours has several flowers this year. They say it is good to put the goo from a broken leaf on your sun burn. It will sooth it.
My mom has these growing like crazy in her yard she is either potting them up as gifts or digging them up to get rid of them. She has several variety's of aloe but this one likes my yard and hopefully it doesn't multiply like hers.
Plumbago! I would have preferred hydrangea better but Chris liked this wild looking plant better. I think it's messy looking and needs a trim. This is the color we are thinking of painting our house. With brown and white trim. Cause the eves are brown and we can't easily change that. So blue and brown house. What do you think?
We have a lot of work to do around the house and garden this summer so check back often to see what we're doing.
That's right, normally we would live and let live but this guy has decided to dig under our back steps and the hubby has decided it could burro under our house and destroy our foundation. The dillo is also digging what hubby calls ankle breakers all over the yard (small holes in the grass). Turns out their main source of food is grubs. Everyone who has been following this blog knows our grass is one part sand and the rest is all grub. Also he heard they carry leprosy. Which, they do, thanks to experiments with leprosy on these animals. Of course that fact is covered up and they say they don't know how come armadillos started showing up testing positive for it after they started experimenting on them with it. Any way... We decided to get rid of the little bugger.
Under the stairs view from under the deck.
Close up of the armadillo's hole.
I called around. To find a trapper. I called what I thought was a state agency called Animal Control and they wanted $420 to catch them. They guaranteed we would be armadillo free for up to a month. I thought to myself my 22 cost less than that. I called a few other places and basically the cheapest was about $200 depending on how many they have to haul off.
I called fish and game to find out if it was illegal to shoot armadillos. I pictured myself in the front yard with the shot gun and the armadillo charging at me. Turns out they aren't endangered and I could shoot them. After being transferred to the sheriffs station I also found out that I can shoot a gun in my yard as long as the bullet doesn't cross any roads and I'm not shooting over any livestock. And my bullets don't end up landing in a neighbors yard. We've only got a quarter of an acre here so I don't think I want to take a chance with that.
We found a guy that would rent us a trap for $40 per trap but we would have to destroy or remove the critter ourselves. So we decided to see how much it cost to buy a trap. Turns out they only cost about $45 so we bought one. Then we found out it is illegal to turn the armadillo loose any where that is not a sanctioned place. So we never got around to finding out if the national forest would be a legal place to let the dillo go. So the plan is this: We will trap it, drive it to the forest. Mean while we will have the 22 in the vehicle with us. If we get caught.... we will just say we were looking for a safe place to shoot it with out the bullets possibly go in the neighbors yard and only let it out of the cage to get a clearer shot.
So, all ready to set up the cage and catch the creature, Chris gives me a demonstration on how the trap will work.
Chris placing the trap.
At first we thought we would just put some dog food in the trap and set it out near the hole. Then we found out that they mostly are blind and follow the same paths all the time and we needed to put the trap in the path of the armadillo. Figuring it would follow the wall we placed the trap across from the hole against the house.
Second trap location. Hole in the distance.
Then we got to talking and it only made since to prevent future armadillos from getting under there we were going to have to cover the bottom of the deck up. And we could make it impossible for the armadillo to go anywhere else except for in our trap. So we bought some trellis and propped it around the deck area.
Final location for the trap
Reese's wanted to help.
After we catch the dillo we will nail up the trellis boards. Stay tuned to see if we catch it and possible release of it into the forest.
