{"id":151,"date":"2015-04-29T09:10:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T13:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=151"},"modified":"2015-04-29T09:10:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T13:10:22","slug":"the-armored-guerrilla-of-pine-flat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=151","title":{"rendered":"The Armored Guerrilla of Pine Flat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0My latest book, HALLEY, has just been released by NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It all started one dark and stormy night two months ago.\u00a0 Or that\u2019s when my husband and I <\/span>thought<\/span> it started.\u00a0 The day after the storm Benjamin kept seeing fresh holes all around the yard, the barn, and out by his shop.\u00a0 At first we blamed squirrels, but\u00a0 we\u2019ve always had squirrels, and they\u2019ve never dug holes this large and deep.\u00a0 These holes were large enough in places to make walking hazardous, and there were fresh ones every morning.\u00a0 After researching, and then talking to the extension service, Benjamin identified the culprit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Armadillo! \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It might be a herd of them, judging from the number of holes.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t be hard to catch.\u00a0 The literature indicated\u00a0 they were slow, lethargic creatures with slow wits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, my husband wasn\u2019t going to let a stupid armadillo defeat him!\u00a0 He brought out a large, heavy-duty trap he had used to catch rats in the barn several years ago.\u00a0 He oiled the hinges and springs and set the trap in an area behind his shop, where the pattern of holes seemed to define a trail.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what will you do with him?\u201d I asked when he placed the trap.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to know,\u201d he replied.\u00a0 \u201cHe-he.\u00a0 He-he.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBenjamin!\u201d I said, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to…\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course not,\u201d he said, rubbing his hands together.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll just <\/span>relocate<\/span> him. He-he.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The next morning he hurried out to check his trap and came back with a demolished wire cage.\u00a0 Whatever he had caught had escaped.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benjamin built a bigger, stronger trap and decided to get up a couple of times during the night to check it.\u00a0 Once something scampered right beside him, but he could not turn on his flashlight quickly enough to identify it.\u00a0 Nights passed with no success, but the holes circled the trap, and eventually came right up to our back porch steps.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNext, he\u2019ll be in bed with us,\u201d Benjamin muttered.\u00a0 He searched the nearby woods.\u00a0 \u201cAh-ha!\u201d he said when he found an enormous hole.\u00a0 \u201cHis den!\u201d\u00a0 When poking long sticks into it brought no results, he got his bee smoker and blew smoke into the hole so thick, nothing could have breathed in there.\u00a0 No results.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next he ordered worms.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll start growing bait armadillos can\u2019t resist,\u201d he said.\u00a0 That\u2019ll draw him into the trap.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The worms came special delivery and he soon had tubs of them growing in his shop.\u00a0 Grinding up oatmeal for their food was becoming an everyday job.\u00a0 Benjamin set up a lawn chair a few yards away from the trap and began slipping out there at night.\u00a0 He started carrying a baseball bat with him.\u00a0 \u201cJust in case,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went out there with him one night and I thought I heard a soft \u201cHe-he-he\u201d in the bushes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weeks have passed and all we\u2019ve found in the trap so far are worms, but the fresh holes keep appearing every morning.\u00a0 Benjamin has begun researching cannons and machine guns.\u00a0 You know, I\u2019m thinking we might turn our yard into a golf course.\u00a0 All we need are sandbars.\u00a0 We have all the holes we\u2019d ever need!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0My latest book, HALLEY, has just been released by NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley\u00a0 It all started one dark and stormy night two months ago.\u00a0 Or that\u2019s when my husband and I thought it started.\u00a0 The day after the storm Benjamin kept seeing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}