Who is guarding your wood?

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I'm waaaay out in the woods of Arkansas. One of the local natives offered to guard my woodpiles in exchange for table scraps.
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I have a bunch of rabbits that take refuge under the stacks. The neighbors dogs started coming over and digging into the wood pile and knocking down a few stacks. I had to put an end to that BS.
 
Got a few of these that keep an eye on everything out here.


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Cool a picture of my exwife and my lawer.
 
Guardian of the wood. He keeps some in the house too. you can take it from him if you like. that is his favorite split, hickory.

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Here is my girl, getting old but still a good guard. Her ears shoot up if anything gets close. She will only bark on command though.
 
Guardian of the wood. He keeps some in the house too. you can take it from him if you like. that is his favorite split, hickory.

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OMG. I want him! I love Rotties. My #1 favorite breed hands down.

Snow. Snow is guarding my wood pile. So well I can barely even find it, so no one else will either....

Lol. Yeah. This.

No wild critters aside from mice and probably some shrews "guard" the stacks. We had a red squirrel for a while, thankfully that left, it was starting to get pretty comfortable with the place and coming up to the house.

I'm jealous of those with (non-venomous) snakes. I haven't even seen a garter here. I'd LOVE a racer or two to take up residence around the place to take on the little furry critters.
 
OMG. I want him! I love Rotties. My #1 favorite breed hands down.



Lol. Yeah. This.

No wild critters aside from mice and probably some shrews "guard" the stacks. We had a red squirrel for a while, thankfully that left, it was starting to get pretty comfortable with the place and coming up to the house.

I'm jealous of those with (non-venomous) snakes. I haven't even seen a garter here. I'd LOVE a racer or two to take up residence around the place to take on the little furry critters.

I have a few rattlers that show up every year around here. I kill them. The bull snakes I leave alone. I also have seen some horned toads. They are pretty cool.
 
Boss on Pile.JPG Boss w wood.JPG AR.JPG If my ole man Heeler/houla/husky mix can't do it I get help from one of my wrestlers I coach. :)
 
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Our boxers- dad, mom and son (L-R). Awesome dogs
 
I found this guy coiled up on top of my stacks last summer.....image.jpg
 
Looks like something has caught his attention.
 
Vermin stand no chance against Popoki!
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That looks just like a cat we had that disappeared about two years ago, looks like he lives in PA now...we called 'im Stan ;lol
Him and his brother Boz liked to hang out on the roof of the house...strange cats...
 
Here is Minna Shepard/Husky mix. She would probably lick you if you came into the yard.:rolleyes:

The next question is, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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Don't have a dog, but I've been teaching my frog to attack on command,,, problem is he hates the cold so my firewood may remain unguarded during the winter months..
 
I have a squirrel that gnaws on a golf ball on top of my oak stack. I've knocked the ball off a few times, but it's always back there on top. Weird.
That reminds me of the squirrel nest I found in my stacks a few years ago. While taking the splits out of there I found inside the nest litter and the little round hollow bedroom he (she?) made I found a little pink stuffed bunny toy.To be clear, it was not just part of the nesting material, but inside the hollowed out nest area where the squirrel slept. I removed the nest and put the bunny on the nearby splitting block, and we went off wood cutting for the day. When we came back a few hours later the squirrel had carted off the little bunny somewhere. Probably took it to his new nest location.
 
Unless that's a domesticated neutered opossum it should die. They are one of the most common carriers of rabies. Once you've seen a child go through the rabies injection routine you wont have any ferral cats, ground hogs, raccoons, or opossums hanging out anymore.


EDIT: After 10 min of googling i found that opposums are rarely rabies carriers due to a low body temp. Sooooo, maybe let him live, but their teeth still creep the hell out of me. The other critters still die.
Thanks for checking yourself and correcting this.

You're right about racoons, sometimes groundhogs but not often, and skunks and foxes, which you didn't mention. Rabies is primarily carried by coons these days, but the others sometimes get it from them. Opossums are entirely harmless little critters, but like racoons, they can carry ugly spore-borne diseases in their scat, so watch out for that.

Most important, because of the racoon/skunk rabies problem, don't leave food bowls outside. When I was a kid, we used to leave even steak bones and the like just outside in a lighted area where we could watch through the windows at night the critters come and chew on them or carry them away. It's totally not safe to do that anymore, sadly.

Rabies shots are bad, being attacked by an insane rabies-ridden raccoon or fox is worse, and coming down with rabies is unspeakably awful, and 100 percent fatal.
 
I try to get free help when I can





My watch cat does things a little different too. His name is Mr. Biggs, he favors 45s

 
Does Mr Biggs have trouble cocking the hammer on those wheel guns. I mean after all no thumbs.
 
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