It has become apparent that this blog is experiencing mission creep. A quick peek at the About page reveals that at the inception of this here little experiment I intended it to document “the old ways.”
I’ll be the first to admit that sounds a bit contrived but hey its a noble cause right. A quick review of the recent posts about futuristic materials etc and I think I drifted off course.
In order to steer our little ship back on course I’m going to call you attention to a book that my uncle lent me the other day. The Friendly Trapper by Harold E. Bailey.
A perfect used book store find.
This is just the kind of book that we here at the Fiddle and Creel love. Its the kind of thing that would not find an audience in the current publishing climate. There is no overarching socioeconomic macro analysis, or pithy one word title. There is no melo-dramatic verbose secondary title. In fact the cover of the copy I have is some pretty bad photos of the author (presumably) holding a raccoon and showing off some bizzarre collection of household cleaners.
But it is a veritable cornucopia of useful ways to keep critters at bay in humane ways. He covers home made Japanese beetle traps, squirrel repellents, skunks, and even human scented deer deterrents. (that one involves getting hair clippings from a barber shop, yummy!) I also learned that snakes apparently hate the smell of diesel fuel, who knew?
So if you have critter problems, pick up a copy they can be had for basically the cost of shipping on amazon, and its well worth the price of admission.
Oh and check out this video from a new (to me) fly company, Devolo. They have some nice cans. It looks like a portion of the profits goes towards micro-finance type initiatives, we need more that.
