OT Might be problems with our food chain this summer or fall, so thinking about planting garden

Animals go where food is. If it is inconvenient for us, that doesn't give us the right to torture them. Since a raccoon killed my cat Sophie I've had little mercy. They are the only trapped animals I have killed except for possibly rabid ones. But not tortured.

I have variously found in traps skunks, foxes, rats, birds, a neighbor's cat (stuck all night in pouring rain), squirrels. Squirrels drive me nuts because they devour my fruit, I wrap trees in net and put mild electrical charge in fence. Snakes can get in and out. They all go their way in peace.

 

i get it and protecting ones own is totally fine. And i get the personal pain of the loss of the pet so i understand your stance, i don't agree with killing though. But if you must, Just be humane about it.

there is also the option to trap and hand over to the humane society or take out into the wilderness and release.

im sorry i shouldn't have posted what i did and i can delete as to not take one of the few positive threads in S2 off track.

its just any mention of raccoons right now puts that damned video in my head aNd i get pissed.
Btw, curious. Not questioning just confirming, are you positive it was the coon that ate your cat?

though they didn't play, a coon and its babies used to come up on our back deck at night and eat our cat’s food aNd our cat would sit and watch and they basically got along.

 

Yeah, it was a raccoon. Trouble with just releasing is we humans have encroached on wild land until there isn't much left, that's why animals come to our yards to feed.

 

I have always believed and always will believe that torturing a human is infinitely worse than torturing an animal although both are terrible.
I've always been revolted how people care more about animals than they care about children.
Don't get me wrong, I care a lot about how people treat animals, well, animals that have developed brains and nerve systems such as dogs and cats, but it's just that it really pains me to see children that go hungry or are treated badly or even murdered.
I think I read somewhere that how people treat animals predicts how they will treat other people. Catch them early when they first begin treating animals badly.
I also agree that, just like a child, most highly developed animals display a trusting and innocence that makes it particularly horrific to see them get terribly mistreated.

 

That raccoon that raided our garbage can when I was 14, was the cutest thing to me at the time. I still remember it with great fondness.

 

I can no longer see them as cute. Not just my cat, a raccoon killed my neighbor's little dog and turtles and they have wreaked havoc in my garden, worse than squirrels even. Still would not torture, humane traps and quick death.

 

the only reason i feel that way is because humans are deceitful and dishonest. Animals are innocent and instinctual.
He have the ability to reason. And when we fail at that them we have no one to blame but themselves. Sometimes humans do stupid things that put ourselves in a position, however horrible, to be the recipient of such treachery.
However animals do not.
For example. I would not do it myself, but if humans had take someone like Hitler Nd tortured him? It wouldn't bother near as much as torturing a raccoon, or taking a squirrel and hanging it off a balcony tied to a string and light its tail on fire or drowning a kitten....

I had to put a dog of mine down when i was 12 or so. And it was one of the worst moments of my life to take the dogs life even though it was for its benefit as it was hit by a car and suffering badly. The feeling would be the same or worse for a human. Its situational i suppose.
I just see humans as more evil than animals and so in a general sense i feel more for them because we bring it on ourselves and they do not.

and as evidence, while im typing, i feel nothing typing about torturing hitler but my heart starts racing thinking about the animals i just described.
Thar is why i feel its worse... in general.
That said, Of course an innocent baby would have a bigger impact on me than an animal.

 

My parents had a cat and a large German shepherd. The dog would chase the raccoons up a tall fir tree near our front door. It would then stand at the trunk of the tree looking up and barking while running back and forth near the trunk. The cat was a male cat not neutered so it had plenty of spunk and would go up the tree after the raccoons which had one by one at night killed all of our pet chickens in the chicken coop. The cat would always come back all beaten up. One time it came back while missing a front fang and having a large gash in it's side so bad that we had to take it to the vet. The vet was a famous one in town who was the official vet of the Trail Blazers and my father-in-law at the time. That cat was absolutely fearless. I can only imagine that the raccoon had the fight of his life. No harm to the dog and the cat continued to give the raccoons hell.
Another time when we had the property up for sale some agent of some Japanese wealthy industrialist of some sort was moving to Portland and needed a place to build a nice home the agent came to look at the property. The property was located in a prime area of Portland near the council crest area. It had beautiful woulds which were well kept by a former federal arborist. It had a ravine, rabbits, pheasant, a small creek and was beautiful. Across the ravine was a neighborhood that had a Street of Dreams on Dosch road. Right while I was talking to the agent about the beauty of the wildlife and the cute raccoons. A family walked about ten feet from us toward a fir tree which they then climbed up. The agent was astounded because it was as if on cue. We haggled over the price and he decided he could steal a deal elsewhere. We eventually sold for our full asking price which was plenty and included the lot my parents gave to me and my wife. We got the prime lot and the most money which I used to get my second degree. In my opinion, the Japanese guy lost out on a great deal, especially since he could have combined our lot in with the other four had one of the best home in the SW hills.

 

Fig ginger jam. Might have to start including jam with cookies.

 

A snail was munching one of my tomatoes. Last meal.

 

Haha... "Ta-ta, Fucker!"

Do you use compost tea in your garden, @crandc?

 

I make compost and just dig it in.

 

This year I replenished my raised beds with bone meal and bloodmeal and had excellent results...I also have a big compost bin that I use to feed the beds as well

 

Good stuff! OK, that's a damn good start... now try making some compost tea to put a forcefield of protection on your garden.

Using your compost, some worm castings, & some unsulfered blackstap molasses brew them together for about 24 hours or so. Then apply it to, both, your soil and plants (as a foliar spray).

 

My compost consisted of whatever raw fruits and vegetables we trimmed in the kitchen plus the grass trimmings plus the dead headed flowers and whateve brush we had to throw away. We just threw it all in a big pile and watered it often in the summer. Everything we grew near that compost pile grew gigantic and lush. I didn't even turn the compost pile over. One side benefit was that we had a small garden snake that made a home in the pile. I loved that but it scared the bejesus out of my wife. One day the snake disappeared. Too many dogs and cats in that neighborhood, I guess.
We use to have a pair of killdeers that nested in the bark dust around a row of rose bushes we had parallel to our long driveway. That lasted about three years and then they never came back. Again, I'm guessing too many dogs and cats running loose.
We had this dog that was a bit of a problem because it had a serious growl for any of the neighbors except for the family with children that owned it. Another neighbor across the street had a cat that ran loose all over the neigbhorhood. One day whil I was throwing a hot dog, potato chips, lemonade and watermelon feed for the neighbor kids the cat wandered into the wrong yard and the mean dog gave chase and caught up with the cat in the yard where the cat lived. The dog quickly dispatched the cat. Next thing I knew, those two neighbors were about to get into a fist fight right in front of all the little kiddies. I had to break it up with kind words for all involved. It worked and the children were spared that horrifying experience.

 

Twin tomatoes.

Do they look like Carmelo's ...

 

Tomatoes are the number one most popular home garden vegetable and my favorite. I grew my first heirloom this year, only got one, and a damn squirrel stole it.

 

My local winco hasn’t had Juanitas tortilla chips for like a week now. This is worse than I could’ve imagined

 

My poor Wife has been unable to locate the Juanita's for WEEKS now, no matter what grocery store she goes to. This is an absolute travesty, we've had to subject ourselves to Santitas, recently.

I'm not sure how many more bags of Santitas I can labor thru...

 

lmao we are in the same boat. Santitas just isn’t the same

congress better not go on vacation without fixing this