This is not the greatest way to start your Sunday.  When the Saint animal control guy first came to the house to remove the woodchuck I had caught in my Havahart trap, he said that where there is one, there are several.  Guess what, he was right!

Let’s start the story from where we last left off with our woodchuck gossip.  As a precaution to keep what’s left of my garden in a healthy state, I have continued setting my trap as much as possible to deter my new woodchuck neighbors.  Several plants have snapped back after being eaten by a woodchuck earlier in July and I vowed to keep it that way.  Last weekend, the food that I had loaded the trap with came up missing with nothing to show for it.  I had actually seen a chipmunk run in and bring out a piece of cantaloupe, so I figured that the food was going out in that manner–to an animal very light in weight so that it doesn’t trip the trap, but crafty enough to get the bait out.

This Sunday morning, I woke up and looked out the window as I do every morning that the trap is set.  The door was closed!  I crept out in pajamas and my garden boots.  I listened for any sounds coming out of the trap–silence.  I lightly kicked the trap.  If you were inside a cage and trapped and then someone kicked the trap, wouldn’t you run around a little or at least give out a scream?  I got zip.  So I took my scissors and cut open the black contractor bag I had placed around the trap.  Look at what was on the other side looking at me………

Woodchuck #2!

#2 is much smaller than #1 and less crazy.  Less crazy meaning #2 isn’t slamming itself against the trap door to try to escape.  I have to say that I am still not brave enough to pick up the trap and empty it, but I was less crazed than the first time I caught one.  Who knows, by the time I catch #6 in my trap, I might be a real frontier man.  I could live with the Laura Ingalls Wilder family on Plum Creek and trap my own food and drink water out of a stream.  Who am I kidding?  I’ll never be like that….and please God, don’t let there be 6!