Saturday I wrote a post about Hug a Sheep Day and left a teaser at the end. This is Part 2. The group of friends who were still here in the middle of the afternoon after we put the sheep away were sitting outside and spinning or knitting. I told the story of my Squirrelinator purchase. The Squirrelinator is a ground squirrel trap that I saw in use at a recent event I attended.

Let me back up and tell you that ground squirrels are a serious problem here. They have built underground cities and have moved enough dirt out of their tunnels to make huge piles in the corners and along the walls inside the barn. Those tunnels are under the concrete floors which makes me wonder when the floors are going to collapse. They have made tunnels in the drain field of the engineered septic system for the second house on the property. The drain field is a newer version of an old leach field and is a long mound with layers of sand, gravel, stones, and pipe. At one point we found that they had dug into the layer of stones and had pulled dozens of 3″ stones out of the tunnels.

So, when I saw the Squirrelinator and heard success stories I ordered one. I put the trap on that septic mound and sprinkled some grain in the trap. It took about three days before I caught my first squirrel. I was surprised that the trap was moved about three feet from where I placed it, but didn’t think much more about it. A few days later I walked back to where it was and I couldn’t find it. Keep in mind that this is a wire cage about two feet square by 4″ high. How can a two foot square cage disappear? I searched all around the area. There are thick tangled black berries on the west, fences on the west, south, and north, and a structure on the east. Tangled tree branches reach the ground on the north. There are old trailers, and old tractor, broken pallets, piles of wire, and all the STUFF that accumulates on a farm because you never know when you’ll need something.

The group of Farm Club members were intrigued and decided that they would find the Squirrelinator. I was dubious, because I couldn’t imagine how an animal (coyote or dog?) could have moved it so far, and I had searched all over and at the edge of the neighbor’r orchard to the north. This photo shows the west end of the septic drain field. There are squirrel holes under the blackberries and at times when I walk past this to get to the irrigation valves further west I have counted 10 squirrels running to their holes.

Katie stomped through the blackberries and found the Squirrelinator!

I went to the barn for clippers to cut away the blackberries and a rake to clear the path. It was under the branches where you see a hole in this photo.

I thought that we should have a photo mimicking those you see of hunters with their prey.

The garbage can lid became a tray for the owl pellets we had found on our quest.

Have you ever picked apart an owl pellet to find out what’s inside? Most of you probably know about owl pellets. A google search tells me: “Owl pellets are compact, tightly bound masses of indigestible animal parts—such as fur, bones, teeth, and feathers—that owls cough up or regurgitate.”

We found some tools with points (forceps and scissors) to start poking and pulling the pellets apart.

Doris found a picture of squirrel anatomy so we could identify the bones we found.

Each pellet had at least one skull and several hip bones, among dozens of others.

Here is a collection of what we found. The plastic skeleton is one that Rachel brought to celebrate the day.

Rachel decided that the bones should have a place in her flask and then be a fixture in the Weaving House.

After evening chores I set the trap up again, but this time chained it to a fence so it couldn’t disappear.

The group of us shared a lot of texts that evening and, after Rachel found a reference to CSI-SVU (Special Squirrel Unit), Amy got creative with this AI-generated description. Maybe the squirrel shouldn’t look quite so happy.

It’s a good thing I added a chain to the trap. This is how I found it this morning. Next I want to set up a trail camera to find out what’s going on after dark.