Since war has been declared on the backyard predators not much killing has been happening. The Ring camera likes to alert on the cats and chickens but we are not having great luck with it sending us alerts for predators. So at night I turn on the camera on my phone and watch it live while we are watching television. This way I can spot it if something comes to the back porch. Well Annmarie spotted something and I have gone out a couple of times to only find a cat. Friday night we spotted a skunk! This is probably the skunk that sprayed our Border Collie in the front yard. Chance still smells like skunk even after three baths. The trouble with this is that the skunk was coming towards the back door and I really did not want to get sprayed directly in the face. Washing the dog was as close as I want to get to the offensive part of a skunk. So I grabbed the spotlight and 22 pistol, Gingerman grabbed a shotgun and his phone light. As soon as it was safe to go out I was headed towards the garden when a voice came over the Ring camera telling me that something had jumped the gate and was headed towards the chicken coop. I went that way, spotted two different cats but nothing else when the Gingerman hollered and said he saw a black and white streak headed into the garden.
I ran that way and we scoped out the entire lavender, garden are and orchard and did not spot a skunk. My bet was it was hiding in the raspberry/blackberry patch. But that is so overgrown you kinda have to push your way through. No way I was going in there looking for a skunk. I went back in and the Gingerman took light and looked some more without any luck. I found a second good flashlight and put it back by the back porch. The weather was rainy and windy last night so the skunk did not come around. I do not believe the skunk killed the kitten but it did spray the dog so it needs to go away. It will spray the dog again if given a chance. I still think there is a town raccoon out there somewhere and that is what killed the kitten.
We are starting to get some washout on the downhill side of the gazebo platform. I am sure it is from the rain coming off the roof. So I switched gears and am starting to support the hillside. Large, barely able to move, rocks on the flat level area and then rocks at least six inches in size above that on the hillside. Some of those large rocks weigh so much that only three can be carried in the bucket of my tractor. It won’t lift the bucket with a fourth one present. I am going to use about half the rocks out in the alley way. I may have enough rocks for the support wall maybe. It will be close. I can always go on the back hillside, there is an endless supply of rocks there.
I know I am getting old, the big rocks make my butt and sternum hurt after I move them around for a few hours. I muscle them into the bucket and then into place. I was able to leave all the rocks in the bucket and just dump the bucket where I wanted them. I could just sort them in place at that point.
Gingerman sent me the link to the biannual farm consignment auction yesterday. There was 30 pages of equipment and supplies for sale. I have managed to cut it down to two pages of watched items. It’s a three hour, one way drive to pick up the equipment in Idaho. Once I realized that it was pretty easy to knock the list down from four pages to two. The list is probably below one page but they have 10 of the mini excavators for sale! I could move rocks all day long with one of those. They also have a bunch of accessories and extra attachments so I have all of it flagged so I can watch them. They also have several mini skid steer loaders. I could get into every nook and cranny of the barn and not have to do any hand digging! This would be the bomb!
Stewart Creek Somethings 