Traps and traps

It all began with a book we purchased at a library sale last summer.

 Zach read the book and was inspired last fall to build some traps of his own. He even built a catapult, but that will have to wait until another post.

 First, he started with a bird trap.

It proved to be unsuccessful, but it kept him and his brothers busy outside for days. They tried to attract the birds with birdseed stuck on peanut butter.

They have their very own PB jar as the winter before last they made some homemade birdfeeders out of pine cones. Just smear some peanut butter on the pine cone and roll in wild bird seed. Hang on a tree to enjoy! It worked to attract the birds, but the trap idea didn't.

A few weeks went by and then in November, something else inspired Zach. My neighbor and I had been collecting black walnuts as they were very plentiful. She had laid her walnuts out on the floor of her shed to dry. Zach, who was supposed to be doing homework, happened to peer out the window and horror of horrors - saw a squirrel going in and out, in and out of that shed just hauling those walnuts away one by one.

We noticed our friend wasn't home, so I promptly called her. She informed us she would be gone for a couple days, but experience told her that squirrels can steal walnuts with incredible speed. We assured her that we'd take care of the problem for her.

That's when I sent my son to take care of sealing that big crack under the shed with 'something', anything so that the rodents couldn't get back in. And then he got this grand idea for a squirrel trap.

He has spent hours watching YouTube videos and read books on all different kinds of  squirrel traps. In fact, he just ordered another book on this very subject from the library. So you can see, this is an ongoing thing for him. He is determined to trap a squirrel, but so far they've outsmarted him.

I got a little sidetracked from my original story so we'll go back to the day he built the trap. School was totally history, it was the last thing on his mind as by now all he could think of was squirrels, and traps, and BB guns, and squirrel stew, and on and on. He was in squirrel heaven. Forget the textbooks. You couldn't convince him to write a thing if you wanted to as he'd sit there and daydream about squirrels and traps and squirrels. The best thing was to shelve the books for another day, and go outside - off to learning something exciting.

He waited and waited for the squirrel, very anxious to pull the string. Frankly, I had little faith he'd be fast enough to tug the line but I left him alone to figure that out for himself.

The contraption worked sure enough as he checked and rechecked the trap, pulling the line, resetting the trap, and looking all around for any sign of squirrel.

 He'd lay on the ground like this....

 .....the next second his head would be in another direction.

We were all laughing as we watched him from the house. He simply had very little patience to sit there and wait. He couldn't hold still for 5 seconds. It was too funny.

 He was bored.

 He'd his head kept moving from side to side. That alone scared the squirrels away.

 And pretty soon he was done with that kind of waiting.

 He went for his gun again.

 And rechecked his trap.

This went on for a couple weeks until he decided to try different places and different methods. He's not given up, yet. He's determined to trap a squirrel and with persistence, I know he can do it because others' testimonies on video prove that it can be done.

Fast forward to today.

This particular trap hangs a squirrel arond the neck by a string and he wanted me to see it.

He's learning all kinds of things through this.....what works and what doesn't. He can explain it way better than I. So when it came to an English report, what better thing to write than about traps and squirrels?

His brothers are one step behind him. And yeah, I can't figure out how in the world Braden can sit like this but he does it all the time.

 Landon demonstrated his own loopy loop and had me watch how it all worked while he explained every detail to me.

Meanwhile, Zach's also taken up carving in between trap building and we've had all kinds of twigs, shavings, knives, and dirt in our laundry this winter. He specializes in wooden knives with engraved initials. But I'm glad to see the creative spirit behind all this and thank the Lord for so many blessings.