May 2, 2023
There I stood out in the woods with my pants down around my ankles. But, please, don't jump to conclusions until you read my explanation.
It started when I decided to build an electric fence around my current peach tree -- which is loaded with ripening fruit. In past years, the aroma of ripening peaches attracted multiple possums and raccoons to pilfer my hard-earned fruit. They prefer ripe fruit, but will readily switch to partially ripe ones when ripe ones have all been eaten. They understand no such concept as sharing. You know, just leaving a few fruits to ripen so that the guy that plants, fertilizes, and nurtures that tree can also experience the joy of peach juice dripping from his chin.
In past years, I used Havaheart traps (that capture animals alive) with some success, But releasing these varmints down the road to eat my neighbor's peaches or invade a local park triggered a deep sense of shame and guilt. Whenever I tried this tactic, I looked around carefully to make certain that no one was watching when I released the critters. Also, I shot a few of these masked bandits and toothy, rat-like creatures. but they just kept coming and I found this murderous act reasonably unkind to the animals. Anyway, this year I decided to try another tactic. I would build an electric fence to keep them away from my peaches. No killing or capturing would be necessary
Luckily, I already had an old electric fence around my garden. It consisted of a single strand of electric wire a few inches above the chain-link fence so that when the varmints climbed up the fence they would be zapped and deterred from a banquet on garden produce. But the lure of ripening figs in my garden was so great that they learned to dig under the fence anyway. But, the old wire, energizer, T-posts, and insulators were available, so all I had to do was gather them up and reassemble them in the fruit orchard. Right?
With a one-gallon plastic container in hand, I started removing the old wire and insulators. The insulators went in the containers and the wire could be rolled in neat loops like a lariat. Unfortunately, I forgot that wire does not behave like a rope. Each loop acted as if it dispised its neighbor and was trying to escape. But, as I held all the loops together with one hand, I made relatively rapid progress and was able to remove and collect the insulators at the same time. It was a little clumsy but working satisfactorily until I heard an unfamiliar sound high up in a tall Post Oak near the fence. As I tried to move further down the fence line to get a better view of the source of the sound, one of the wires on the loop caught on my ratcheted belt buckle, and my pants fell down. For some reason, even that big metal button above the zipper on my Wrangler jeans did not hold. So, there I was with a handful of unruly wire in one hand, a container with insulators in the other, and my pants down around my ankles so I could not even walk.
In spite of these inconveniences, my main concern was to determine the source of the odd sounds in the tree. But, to clearly determine the source of the noise, I must first become mobile. If I released my grip on the wire, it would explode into a tangle of loops that would require considerable labor to untangle. So, I put the container on the ground and shuffled over to a nearby T-post and placed the roll of wire over it -- where the wires maintained some semblance of integrity and I was then able to pull up my pants. Whew!
By then, I had a reasonable guess about the source of the noise. It was a Pileated woodpecker that recently made a nest in a dead limb of a neighboring Water oak tree. They are the largest woodpeckers in the USA and are normally very sensitive, hermit-like birds that have no fondness for humans. It was making small movements while thrashing its wings on the branches. At first, I thought this action was made for my benefit -- as an attempt to distract me from its nearby nest. But, an equally likely scenario is that this bird was defending against a Rat snake, although I never saw the snake. Having just recently seen a large copperhead and a small Coral snake and a Rat snake in the vicinity, the snake theory seems believable. So when I was removing the wire and insulators, the ankle-deep grass was also scrutinized with some care lest I step on one of these poisonous reptiles.
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| Pileated Woodpecker |
Building the fence around the peach tree was not complicated. The wires needed to be low enough to the ground so that a possum or raccoon can not squeeze under the wire without being zapped -- about 4 inches I guessed. Other higher wires were placed about 4 inches apart. So far, it seems to be working and we are eating ripe peaches.
One problem arose when my ancient, electric, fence testing tool failed to work. But then, I remembered the old tried and true method. Just convince your younger brother to pee on the fence. It's rather painful to the brother, but then you will know if the fence is really hot. OK, I had no younger brother available, but the saints or devils smiled at me when my little dog, "Tiger" walked into the wire, yelped loudly, and fled the orchard at high speed. "So sorry about that" I apologized to my little dog, "but many thanks for your service." A little later, when he tried to reenter my fenced-in orchard, he was unable to enter because I had closed the gate to prevent another painful encounter with that strange fence.
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| Tiger Outside the Gate |
I still don't know if this fence will be effective in preventing the varmints from eating my peaches. But the thought of a zapped raccoon squealing with pain helps satisfy those evil genes that reside in the human gene pool. You know, the same ones that caused our ancestors to torture atheists, Jews or somebody -- just for fun.
Oh well!
