RRZ™ Part Two

Tom here today, continuing our story of the Rat Recycling Zone™. Just like the last post, if you don’t want to think about rats, then perhaps we can interest you in a nice post about tomatoes.

First things first – we’ve had some requests to discuss the rat tunnel traps in more detail.

When we had rats in the attic or the crawl space, it was a straightforward enough affair to set out traps, but outdoors is a different situation. You want to trap rats, sure, but not run the risk of injuring other suburban fauna – cats, raccoons, etc. As with many things in modern life, I went to YouTube for inspiration, and found this video:

The ominous music alone sold me on this design.

Here’s a view of one of the traps that I’ve made:

My first traps used some scrap wood, but for the more recent traps I just used some inexpensive fence boards, cut to length to form the top, bottom, and sides, and held together with some deck screws. The top isn’t attached so that it’s easy to get in and inspect the traps. There’s a small barrier on either end to discourage larger animals from going inside, and the whole thing is weighted down by bricks to minimize the chance of something trying to open the whole thing up.

Here’s a view of the inside:

You can see the two traps set back-to-back, facing outwards. As Elizabeth mentioned, I’m mostly just using bird seed as bait – our local rat population has developed a taste for bird seed.

The traps I’m using are Tomcat brand snap traps. They’re just as effective as the traditional Victor traps that look like they’re out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but are much simpler to set and are a lot less prone to going off accidentally as you move them around. (We used the traditional Victor traps with our home rat problem, but after getting my fingers snapped a few times I’m done)

We’ve got the traps generally placed along fence lines and other straight edges, as rats like to follow along fences.

As Elizabeth mentioned in our last post, we’ve taken to putting the ex-rats out in the open, and something has absconded with them overnight. But what could it be? An owl? A raccoon? For about $40 we acquired a small trail camera - the Apeman H40 - capable of taking photos and videos as things pass by. Here it is, set into position:

And here’s the footage it caught around 9PM on Sunday night:

A possum! At least for that night, that’s what’s made off with the ex-rat.

Turns out, possum are fairly omnivorous creatures, snacking on insects, fruit, slugs and other garden pests. They’re also fond of carrion, which is what’s helping us out here. The possum (or a relative) came back several times that night, seemingly nibbling on other bugs that were around, hoping for other rats. We also caught sight of a cat lurking about.

After several successive nights in a row of successful rat trapping, the traps came up empty last night. We’re not sure whether that means we’ve put a serious dent in the local population, or whether we need to move the traps around to keep them off their guard. At some point we’ll train the trail camera on the fountain to see what else is visiting in the middle of the night.

The RRZ

I thought you’d like to hear more about our rat adventures. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks since I cleared out the garden, eliminated cover and hiding spaces, and replanted for winter. Tom has been diligent about keeping the traps set and ready; I’ve been good about keeping an eye on the details. And I think we are winning the battle. Here’s what’s transpired. By the way, if you’re at all squeamish, this is not the post for you.

First of all, what you see above is one of Tom’s tunnel traps. If you’re interested in how he built these, let me know - I’ll have him write a post about them with instructions. Tom now has four of these staged around the garden, in places where we often see rat activity. Inside each are three spring traps, baited with bird seed. The traps are a particular kind. The ones that break bones and kill super fast also cause a lot of (ahem) human injury. So Tom has abandoned those for a still powerful, but not as strong trap. They work, but they may cause some suffering to the rats. This is not ideal. But if I want the trapper to keep trapping, it’s a compromise I’m willing to make. We were told by a pest-control guy a couple years ago that rats would never go in any kind of box or tunnel. We have found the opposite. Tom is catching rats almost every night.

As I said, sometimes the rats don’t die right away. Tom checks the traps every morning, and if there is a rat who is in the last throes, he leaves it there until later. One day, the chickens were making an awful fuss, so I knew there was a predator nearby somewhere. When I went out, I saw this red-shouldered hawk looking down right at the struggling rat. It flew off, but not long after, the chickens made another racket, and I looked out to see the hawk down on the ground by the rat. This gave Tom an idea. Now, when he removes the dead rats from the traps, he leaves them out in our yard in a special place which we now call the RRZ. The Rat Recycle Zone.

And they always disappear within 24 hours. We’re never sure what takes them - raccoon, owl, fox, or hawk - but something always does.

My dad always talked about how he does the exact same thing, and at the time, we thought it was a crazy idea. But, really, what could be more natural? Except that WE are doing the killing of course. Oh yeah and basically feeding the predators. Ok it’s not natural at all. But it satisfies some need in us to be useful.

I think we’re making a dent in the population. It’s still a battle, though. For a while, each morning when I’d go out to let the chickens out, I’d notice that the rats had chewed through the drip lines in the veg beds, which meant Tom was replacing line every day. Finally I just decided to put water out. It’s more worth it to us to provide water than it is to replace those lines every day. I remove the chicken food from the coop every night and replace it in the morning. I put the chicken water out in the run so that whoever wants to can drink from it (and then I clean it each morning). I’m noticing that there is less tunneling into the coop now, so I believe doing those two things has solved that problem.

Just a reminder that these are non-native Norway rats. They are invasive. And they are making an absolute mess of my garden. So that is why we have chosen to kill them. We do not use poison, because that, in turn, poisons the creatures who eat them. Also, we have had problems with both Norway and Roof Rats. Neither are native to California.

IMPORTANT OFF-TOPIC COMMENT: We have had problems with our newsletter sign up, and unfortunately I think that if you have signed up in the past two weeks, your request has not gone through. Squarespace has changed some things regarding their mail service. So, we will remedy all of that this coming weekend. I’m hoping that those of you who signed up and have not gotten notifications will sign up again. I will post when we have the new system set up. Thank you for your patience!

Starting Over

This has truly been the weirdest garden year. We started off with a dry winter, and we are ending with a dry autumn; there’s no rain in the forecast until maybe mid-November. We had shelter-in-place starting in March, which meant our garden was more beautiful then its ever been in the months of April and May. Then we had the hottest summer we’ve ever had, and smoke for over 30 days in a row. The summer garden just couldn’t hack it, so I took it out and planted the fall garden early. But then we got even more extreme heat, more smoke, and relative humidity in the single digits. Plus record-breaking wind! I lost my first autumn plants to squirrels. The replanted seeds barely germinated.

I’ve been so busy with school that I haven’t been in the garden much at all in October, other than to harvest some winter squash and basil and to pick flowers for bouquets. A while ago, I began to see some ominous signs of increased rat pressure. Tunnels started appearing. Deep tunnels. Land bridges formed overnight. I could see a path forming from the neighbor's chickens to our chickens. Fence boards came loose. The compost pile would be upended every morning. I began to see tunnels IN the chicken coop, which was alarming since we surrounded the whole thing 12 inches deep with hardware mesh when we built it. Tom set traps, and was catching a rat or two every couple of days - not stellar, but certainly a help. We started hearing barn owls in our yard at night, a great sign. And then suddenly, no more owls. No more rats in the traps. And the peas were eaten down to nubs. The germinating brassicas disappeared.

Yesterday morning, when I peeked under the row covers to see what was going on, I discovered an underground city. Deep, deep tunnels, within the raised beds. A perfect pathway from other yards into ours. And then from there into the chicken coop to eat the chicken food and drink the chicken water. All covered and protected from flying predators by my innocent white row cover.

I’ve never had this happen. My beds have always stayed perfect, pristine. No animal (other than our dog Joe, all those years ago) ever did much digging in them. I guess I’ve been lucky. All my plants, gone, for the second time. I was furious.

This morning I declared war. Resolved: I will bring in the chicken food and water every night, pain though it may be, so that there is no food source. Resolved: I will stop composting food scraps for a bit. Resolved: I will stop feeding the birds for now. I rolled up the row cover and pinned it, so that there is no protection from owls. I dug up the beds, really dug them, breaking my pitchfork in the process, filling in all the tunnels, and dug out the hill of compost from the chicken coop to add to each bed (no more compost pile as another food source). The beds look great, but we’ll see what happens tonight - it’s possible that I’ll find new destruction tomorrow morning. For this reason, I am not replanting - I will wait a few days before trying again. Tom will re-set the traps in new areas tonight, and we’ll see if we can start to make a dent in the population again.

This has really taught me a lesson. I must be more vigilant. At this point, the winter crops will not get big enough to eat over the cold months, and will not be ready until spring. My inattention means that we won’t have homegrown produce this winter, and that makes me really mad at myself. I have so much more to do in the garden, so much to replant, so much cleaning up to do. I am noticing that I am not as focused as I used to be where the garden is concerned. That’s ok if I plan for it - I mean, no one is putting pressure on me to continue gardening, after all. It’s my own pressure, my own deal. I might need to scale some things down, if my semesters are going to continue to take up more of my time. But having fresh, homegrown food is still a priority for us, and so I need to figure out a more workable schedule.

Anyway, we’ve had two rather more welcome additions to our garden recently. Tom and I celebrated our 20th anniversary in September, and in lieu of a weekend away, we bought a Netatmo Weather Station. We have really been enjoying more accurate weather, with data taken from our own property. Graphs will be made! Data will be analyzed! One thing that’s surprised us is how different the temperatures are from the local weather forecast - not hugely different, but enough to see that we are in a little ‘pocket’ and things are different here than they are wherever the national weather service stations are located. For instance, we’ve had nighttime temps in the high 30’s recently, colder than our local forecast predicted. Also, we have a second weather station inside, and it’s been eye-opening to see the CO2 levels rise to unhealthy levels whenever we use our gas stove. More on that in a future post.

The other addition is a moisture meter, able to detect the water level in our soils, down to a foot and half depth. This has provided us with some interesting information; one side of our garden is basically the desert, while the other side is basically flooded, and both are receiving the same amount of drip irrigation! This could be due to several factors (soil texture, shade, slope) and will require more experimentation.

I hope you’re getting lots of time in your gardens, and that you are able to be out in nature in some form every day. I’ve been hiking a lot more and I forgot how much I love it. Honestly, nature is absolutely saving me. It may be a strange gardening year, but that doesn’t mean that I am not enormously grateful for having a place to go to escape the rest of the world. How about you?

Our First Snake! *

*That we know of, that is.

This is a Western Sharp-tailed snake. It is endemic to the West from the Central Coast of California up through the Pacific Northwest. I found it under one of the bricks I use as vegetable markers. It’s about the size of a golf ball, all curled up like that, but these snakes only reach about a foot in length, so they are naturally small. It tends to like wetter areas in the garden, and guess what they eat? Slugs and slug eggs! This is so amazing. I could not have asked for a better first snake sighting. Yes, I’d like something to eat rats, and this snake won’t take care of that, but I sure do have plenty of slugs. I hope there are lots of these little snakes all over the garden!

Today was a great day. The sun shone! It was in the 60’s! I spent half the day doing classwork and half the day in the garden, which felt close to normal. Drunk on sunshine, I threw caution to the wind and planted out all my peppers. I have three 4x4 beds full of hot, sweet, and paprika peppers. The soil felt warm, the nights will be warm for the next ten days at least, and I think we are out of danger of frost. Normally our last average frost date is February 15, but we didn’t really have winter until March! And even as late as last night, it was quite chilly with snow down to 3000 ft. But tonight it all changes, and I’m hopeful that spring is well under way, now.

My mood is just so different on days like this, when I have some purpose to shape my activities. We are feeling very hopeful here in California that our curve is somewhat diminished; our governor was very quick to make social distancing recommendations very early in March, and we’re seeing some signs that that was a good decision. The battle is not won, however, and we also watch the news coming out of NY and Louisiana with heavy hearts. It was good to forget about the virus for a few hours. I hope you are able to do the same.

A Bat in our Garden

The picture above was taken last August at the Yolo Bypass - an event that I wrote about at the time and can be accessed HERE. I love bats and have always wished to have them in our garden. The likelihood is that they already are, but last night we had proof: For about ten minutes, around 8:30 pm, I watched a single bat fly around the North side of our garden.

First, the behavior: The bat flew quite low, about 8 feet off the ground (sometimes higher) in a roughly circular pattern over this portion of the garden, dipping lower as it flew over the compost pile in the chicken’s run, and then higher as it flew over and around the plants and trees. It kept coming back to the compost pile, and all I could figure is that there were a lot of flying insects in that particular area. It dodged and changed patterns, swiftly and surely. At one point I could hear its wings beating, but of course I could never hear its chirps as they are in a register far above our hearing ability. What an absolute delight. Tom and I just could not get over it and were so happy to see that evidence of a healthy ecosystem.

Many years ago, Tom and Adam built a bat box to erect in the garden, but we never got around to putting it up. It has been sitting upright on the ground, against the fence, behind the quince tree, ever since. It would require a large pole; bats are notoriously fussy about boxes and they have to be positioned just right, it just always seemed too difficult to make it ideal for nesting (for a list of requirements, see this page). I’m regretting that now, and will begin again to figure this puzzle out. Meanwhile, where was this single bat nesting? We do have a highway overpass about a mile away, where we’ve seen swallows nesting for years. It’s near a not-quite-dry-in-summer creek, which is ideal for bats. We are also not far from a series of cliffs and rock walls in the Mt Diablo foothills. Bats can fly many miles to find good forage.

Wherever the bat is nesting, it is likely nesting in a colony, and they all leave the area at the same time each night. Then they each go their separate ways, looking for prey. I’ll have to remember to go down to the freeway overpass and see if there is a bat ‘exodus’ in the evening! Bats are also migratory, so they might only be nesting here in the summer months.

Photographing this single bat would prove difficult. First of all, it’s heavy dusk. Second of all, its flight pattern is so fast and erratic. It seemed quite small, which makes me think it was a Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis), but it could have also been a big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) or any one of the genus Myotis. I just do not know enough about bats to be able to ID it on the wing, in the dark.

You can be sure that tonight at the same time, I will be outside sharp-eyed, looking for the bat to return - maybe with friends. Do you have bats in your garden? Have you successfully installed a bat house? I’d love to hear about it. Meanwhile, for more information about Northern CA bats, please visit the Northern California Bat Rescue and Education website (you can also get info on the tours at the Yolo Bypass, like we attended last August - they are usually booked ahead of time so plan ahead) and also see this interesting article in Bay Nature, written by one of my Horticulture classmates! Also, the following video from Growing a Greener World (PBS) has some fabulous information.