Just a note here, to any official trouble makers, that anything below "might not be true, but may be a work of fiction, about what it might be like to be someone like me, but different" - hows that for a disclaimer?? :)
That started with finally transporting our 5 pet goldfish, which had spent the last year in hiatus at my work, to the clawfoot tube converted to pond that I'd created for them in our side yard.
They had lived for more than 10 years at our old suburban house in an open pond, without even a scratch, and I figured we were in the city now... Of course, the possum and raccoon that we saw in the trees out back a few weeks before got my radar up a bit, so I put a weighted net cover over the pond and figured we'd be good. Then a few days later, I got a hysterical call from Barbara, asking where I'd put the fish... Investigating, I find lots of tiny long paw prints from a masked bandit... From that point on, it was open season for Raccoon. Delilah, on returning home and hearing the story, shook her tiny fist at the tree where we had seen the 'coon, and yelled "I hate you Raccoon!".
We called animal control, and they said they couldn't do anything. Our tax dollars at work. Go talk with Trapper Rick. Trapper Rick wanted $250 to set out a couple of traps for 5 days - no guarantees. Well, for that much, I figure I can buy a trap and deal with it my self.
So I buy a trap from Amazon, read through the instructions, buy the special "Raccoon Bait" (definitely don't want to catch a skunk instead), bait it, set it, and hope for the best. In the mean time, Barbara has worked herself into a lather, and wants to make a hat out of the coon. I tell her that's fine, but she has to kill it her self - which she decided that she could convince someone else to do with her feminine wiles...
And the trap sits. Nothing. After a few days, the apple starts to look less appealing to me. I figure I'll have to re-bait it at some point here, and give up but leave the trap out. Barbara and I were going out of town on Saturday for an overnight to Palm dessert, and had our morning tightly planned in orchestration, and of course - that's when we discover that we've caught an intruder... But instead of the raccoon, its the possum.
Ok, so I call animal control again, figuring "we'll, I've trapped it, they can just take it". Hum, not so simple.
"I've trapped a possum, and need to know what to do with it."
"You need to release the animal."
She obviously didn't understand me.
"A critter ate our goldfish last week, and you told us to hire a trapper - so we trapped it..."
"Sir, you need a permit to trap an animal, a permit to transport an animal, and a permit to release or euthanize an animal. You need to just release it..."
Hum, so this is where the seeds of civil disobedience are planted, eah? In my own back yard!
So, I break out my heavy leather welding gloves, toss a towel in the car, and a blanket over the cage, and put it in the back of our little Mercedes, thinking to my self "I wonder how many possums have driven been driven around", and head out to a distant corner of Balboa Park. It's already after the time that we were going to depart, and instead of having suitcases in the car, I've got this possum... Driving into a remote corner of the park, I discover that apparently all the rangers actually do their work on a Saturday morning. I've never seen a ranger in the park, other than doing trash duty. They were everywhere that morning. I orbited around for a while, and finally found a little path leading down a canyon at the end of a road. I pulled out the cage (which of course was backwards, so had to spin this mysterious blanket covered box around, with leather gloves on), opened the door, and then proceeded to spend several minutes to coax out the possum. When he finally got the idea, he was off like a shot...
Take two of the fish pond will be an aquaculture system with a heavy planter on the top to prevent critters from getting in...
Because, I suppose, life isn't complicated enough already, we've decide to at least try the "urban chicken" thing, and because I don't like to do anything half-arsed, I've been doing some research. Bought some books, talked to some folks, even took a workshop. Some of the take homes were:
a) Chickens are dumb. They don't care what their coop looks like. So make it out of as much stuff as you have around to reuse.
b) They do need space, theoretically like a coop and a run, roosts, a nest box, and a dry and relatively draft free space.
c) Your neighbors probably do care, both what it looks like, and what it smells like - so make it aesthetic, and easy to clean and service.
d) Critters, such as the rat-bastard raccoon above, would like to make a snack out of your chickens.
So, make it durable, with latches that can't be easily jimmied.
So, we start off with a 12 foot section of cedar fence, a bunch of old lumbar, and a few trips to Home Depot and Lowe's for the finishing touches, and...
And with help from many in our little community (John, Steve, Beth, Chrissy, Barbara and Delilah included), we end up with something like:
And the happy chickens which we are trying to keep under the radar, so as to not annoy any neighbors with them...
The planters are blooming as well -
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