Monday…Week number one ends today and whatever we catch today will be added to the 32 rats we have in the fur shed.  Considering all the nasty weather that really isn’t a bad weeks catch.  As the weather warms we will see an increase in catch rates by day and some days, if everything goes as usual, we will see daily catches close to the weekly catch we have so far.

Today is my day to feed the horses and so I will get that done as soon as my helper, Weasel has time.  We also have an injured horse in the field and I might have to take down a small section of fence to allow it to get back with the rest of the horses.  It has located itself on the creek side of the fence by the “hole” and is favoring its right front leg so badly it won’t put any pressure on it.  The owner says it has had this condition for over 5 years, but yesterday it was not looking too good.  If it doesn’t get well soon the owner will have to take it to a vet or have a vet come out and look at it.  But this morning I’ll go down and see how it looks before I call the owner.

There is always something coming between me and a full day of trapping.  I should be on the road right now instead of sitting here typing.  Life seems tough some times…HAHAHAHA!

Goals for the day:  Pull the traps at Doris’ pond and set as many as I can on the trellis and farther around Little Spring.  I will make an attempt to go farther down the Big Spring line, but yesterday it didn’t look too promising.  I might have to wait until later this week to get any farther down that line.  I need the snow to melt down about 4 inches out there.

In the mean time, I do have places I can set and will be putting out steel on those lines this week.  I would rather have one long line than several short lines, but this year is an exception to the normal trapping rule.  Gotta do what we gotta do.

I noticed yesterday while skinning the rats, we have some males that are showing signs of running.  Running is a good thing bad thing.  The good thing is we can expect to catch a bunch of rats.  The bad thing is we can expect a lot of damage from them fighting.  Holes in the hides means less than top dollar at the market.

More about today will come when the day is done.

Bears Butt

Feb. 25, 2013