How to catch a ground squirrel & other ranch chores.

How can I best describe this week. Oh yeah, I know, BOR-RING! We've had fits and starts at good weather but haven't been able to put two days of sunshine together. This morning it's 40 degrees and there was snow on the mountain behind us last night!

So we pretty much stuck around the rancho. Mom serviced the ranch vehicles, oil and lube jobs. That was akin to watching paint dry. We also went out into our forest and started working on the wind fall. Mom is quite handy with the old chain saw. She puts up five to seven cords of wood each year. That was a little more fun but not much.


The biggest excitement was mom and her ground squirrel trapping project. Those little suckers are as destructive as prairie dogs. Mom can't bear to kill the little buggers so she traps and relocates them. She has this trap she got off the internet and it seems to work pretty good. When she bought it they sold her some stinky gunk for a lot of money and she never caught a thing with it. Then she tried Hoody's, in the shell, peanuts and she can catch 'em like crazy! Funny how people are always trying to sell you a bunch of expensive junk when the best stuff is already handy in the house. Nothing like living in the woods to get you using your noggin.


We did take some hikes in the forest around us and visited some local ponds. This one was kinda pretty.


And we saw this very nice mule deer buck who was in velvet. He really was a beauty. Looked like he was going to have a very nice rack. Oh, did I tell you? I found mom a shed antler and that really got me extra pats and treats! Yea for me!!!!


We had a pretty nice sunset last night. One of the neat things about living at altitude is you sometimes feel your right in the clouds. Well, I guess we are now that I think about it.

That was our week. Hope yours was a great one!

©Kinsey Barnard