Giving Thanks

This past weekend was Thanksgiving here in the United States.  A time to get together with family and friends and enjoy their company along with good food and drink.  Unfortunately, it's also the start of the sickening shopping season, but that's a different story for another time.

This past weekend we spent Thanksgiving day with my father-in-law, whom we don't get to see nearly enough.  We had a fantastic time with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, my wife's soon to be world famous yams and my father-in-law's cranberry sauce that I really, really need to get the recipe for.

After that, we drove up to Big Bear, which is a mountain town where my wife's family has a cabin.  It's about 75 miles from where we live; however, we don't take advantage of it nearly enough.  We're going to work on changing that.  We spent the weekend in the snow, as there was a storm that passed through a few days prior.  We also got another snow on Saturday night, but not enough to snow us in and keep me from work on Monday.  Damn.  Maybe next time.

I do believe that one of the best parts of going to the mountains is that the cabin doesn't have a television.  Well, it does, but only plays dvd's and vhs tapes (remember what those are?).  It allows you to spend more time with everyone.  And, that's what's important.  Because, when all is said and done, you won't remember the meal so much as who you spent it with and the value of that time spent.  That's what I'm thankful for most...my lovely wife who puts up with my crap...my two beautiful children who are young enough to think of my crap as normal...and the time we got to spend together.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

P.S.  Not to fear, we'll be back to gardening posts soon.  As I'm sure you all figured, the bitch is back.  Mounds on the far side of the planter where the previous vermin was extinguished.  We'll be breaking out the new contraption, keeping ol' medieval in the wings just in case.  In the meantime, since it's winter (yes, yes, yes, I live in California, but we still get winter!!  See the snow!?!?!?!) and there is not time for gardening except on weekends, we'll be updating on more indoor activities.  We have a nice floor going down at the moment that I just KNOW you're both on pins and needles to see.

P.P.S (P.S.S?) Whatever.  Spurs 2, Liverpool 1 over the weekend.  Another spectacular comeback.  I know I had no television, but my lovely wife has a phone thing that gets used for everything except what a phone is actually used for.  Followed the victory on that.  Spectacular.  Fifth place.

Humans 1, Gophers Nul

HA!  Victory over the vermin.  This is shit:

I actually think the gopher used it for what we thought it looked like.  Well, if it was a girl gopher.  This was actually buried under a gopher mound.  So, yesterday, I went to my tried and true.  Which has still been tried, but isn't quite as true.  The hose.  I flooded the holes, but nothing.  I probably didn't wait long enough as dinner was ready and we must have our priorities.  It was chili night, after all.

So, after chili and a couple of pints I ventured back into the backyard last night and pulled out ol' medieval.

Now, as I have pointed out in previous posts, my understanding on how to do this was to dig a big hole around a gopher mound and then place this in front of one of the exposed tunnels.

Yes, yes, yes, these are previously used pictures.  I'm trying to prove a point, so shut it.  Now, according to Curbstone a trap called a cinch trap should do the trick.  So, I ordered one.  It's not here yet.  Mail and shipping and all.  However, the vermin wasn't about to wait for the trap on a white steed, so I had to improvise.

Now, the website I linked to above, www.gopherslimited.com, does an excellent job of explaining how to set their trap.  Now, I figured, why not set ol' medieval in the same way!!  Brilliant!!!!  So, I set him and shoved him down the hole last night.


Fast forward to tonight.  I got home and headed out to the yard.  I gave the wire a tug, and...it was stuck. I also noticed it was sprung.  Now, we had a problem.  Curious children were inside and they have this habit of suddenly appearing at bad times, which we won't get into as this is a family website.  I digress.  I didn't want to pull out a dead gopher with them.  So, I quickly put down my pint (it was after 5!!) and gave a little harder tug.  Then, I had a second fear...and it was true...what if it wasn't exactly, well, dead?


Sure enough, ol' medieval had only gotten a leg.  I had to think quickly.  It was definitely still alive as I pulled it out of the hole.  The middle gopher finger it was showing me was a dead giveaway.  I looked to the left...nada...I looked to the right...shovel.  Brilliant.


Now, I would recommend giving your wife fair warning before swinging a shovel over your head in a very angry like manner.  My wife did not see me swing, she only heard it, so she walked to the window. Unfortunately, well, I missed, so a second swing was required (don't start getting holier then thou, it's vermin), which did the job.  Unfortunately, she saw that one.  It was all very Jack Nicholson in The Shining.  She now stays at least six feet from me at all times.


So, the gopher is dead.  I'm sure of it.


P.S.  I know I have been terrible in my Spurs updates.  Lost today 4-1 to Arsenal in the Carling Cup.  Perfectly fine.  We need to stay focused on Champion's League and Premiere League games, both of which we are doing fine in.  So, stay tuned.  The pork (West Ham) on Saturday!

We're Back! To gophers! Sons of...

Yes, I know, you didn't know we were gone.  But, we were.  We went to one of the most beautiful national parks in the world, Yosemite Valley.  Six nights, seven days.  I think that was a movie, but Harrison Ford was no where near us.  Which is good, because that waif he's married to wouldn't have survived, and I'm sure at some point we would have been forced to eat her.  Anyway, that's a different post, once I get all the pictures together.

This one is about what we returned to.  A damn gopher.

Two holes up against a rock wall.  This is one of the difficult one's as it is at multiple levels, so my favorite flooding method does not work.  I think this one is the cousin of the last one I offed, so he's learned.  I think there is some Gopher Tribune around that gives away all my best stuff.

So, I laid the gopher trap this evening.

That would be the instrument of death.  Yes, we kill them.  Then, we cut their little heads off and put them on a stake that says, "Abandon All Faith, All Ye Who Enter Here."

Now, the question I first had is how in the name of God do I use the trap.  It's quite the contraption after all.  I'll leave it to you to figure out how to set it.  Don't let it close on your hand.  I'm sure it would hurt like hell.

First off, dig into a freshly created hole.  In this case, I got lucky and got a hole that was the end of the line, meaning I only need one trap.  If it's a pass through and there is a tunnel on two sides of the hole, then you'll need two traps, one for each direction.  Set the trap without puncturing your own hand and place right at the gopher hole entrance.

I attach a wire to the trap, because sometimes the little vermin backs into the hole after being caught.  This way, it can be dragged back out, again.

After setting the trap, cover the hole with something, in this case we used a piece of plywood.

Be sure to cover the edges so as to keep any light out of the hole.  Now...wait.  Tomorrow, I'm sure the trap will be sprung without a gopher attached and the hole completely filled to the bottom of the plywood.  That's how they mock me.  Little bastards.

The Orange "Tree"

Sheila at The Gardens of Petersonville posted pictures of her orange blossoms as a celebration of the starting of spring.  Don't confuse hers with ours at the moment.  But, don't panic, we will catch up in due time.

Our Valencia Orange has started to awaken.  We are breathing a collective sigh of relief here at Castle Turling.  During the winter we were ravaged by a gopher.  I'm quite convinced it was the same gopher to star in Caddyshack.

 I have never had the best of luck with the various methods of gopher destruction.  I refuse to use poisons for what I hope are obvious reasons with the pictures of my two little one's already on the blog.

I have tried the traps, as well.  My father-in-law can catch anything with those gopher traps.  I'm chalking it up to his childhood on a farm in Ohio.  I place the traps and come out the next day to the trap being sprung without gopher, of course, but then being buried by said gopher as it filled the hole the trap was in.  I'm convinced it was mocking me and I half expected a little picture of the rodents favorite finger to be sitting in the sprung trap.

I then proceeded to use a third method, which will forever become my method of choice.  It is done as follows:

1. Dig up a fresh hole until the tunnel is located.
2. Stick hose into tunnel.
3. Turn hose on.
4. Return to the house and prepare a proper cocktail.  I had a gin and tonic for this particular one.
5. Go to shed (see previous post) and grab pan head shovel.
6. Get chair.
7. Sit in chair with shovel drinking previously prepared cocktail.
8. Wait for movement from a hole.
9. When discovered LEAP from chair (be sure to be holding the shovel and not the cocktail as it is not effective in the slightest).
10. In one motion bring shovel straight down on to creatures head.

This, thus far, is the only way I have been able to remove these creatures from my yard.  I am also assuming it is the most satisfying.

Now, back to the tree.  Before the above took place, the gopher had been dining on the roots of this tree for some time.  To the point where the majority of the leaves had fallen from the tree.  We were very concerned it was not going to make it.  We decided to give it another season, as it's less than a year old, to see how it did.  Luckily, as you can see from above, it has begun to sprout (grow? is sprout the correct terminology?).

It is not the most intimidating of trees, but it was the right price.  In this spot my son and I had erroneously removed a ficus.  We found this out when my lovely wife returned and informed us of our error.  We quickly drove to the local home improvement center (I'll give the name when they send me a check) and bought this to take its place.  As I said, it's been in the ground about nine months and using a rhyme I heard from P. Allen Smith, "sleep, creep and leap", this tree would be starting its creeping phase this year.  At least, that's the plan.

In the meantime, I'm going to remove the fruit as it begins to mature this year, so the tree can put its energy into growing.  Unless, of course, someone who knows more about these things then I do (keep in mind the Greenhorn portion of the blogs name) tells me this isn't a wise thing to do.

P.S.  Because it's my blog and I can technically write about whatever I want, I wanted to write about my beloved Tottenham Hotspur's victory of Portsmouth today, 2-0.  Further solidified into fourth place, now.  Keep your fingers crossed we can hold it through the last seven games.