Diary with Maureen

​Report today!! It is actually two days report. Yesterday I had no time. Went to Butch and Jo for dinner after deploying 5 new traps. Only did 5 yesterday because John and Susie arrived later on around two o’clock. So we went down Piccadilly Line to the coalmine to deploy these new rat and stoat traps. Lovely day too.
 
Had to get the hang of it first. They are not so easy to install. First you take off all parts, like the mount on the tree, then the cap, and off the cap you have to take off the top. Little clips to undo. Then the battery  department opens and you have to remove little paper to make battery work. Then you have to clip it back on.
 
Then I have to open app on the phone and then shake the trap top quite hard until light blinks and then the trap connects to the phone and I have to enter the data like number of trap and location. Then John has to attach the mount onto the tree and then the trap itself clicks into the mount.
 
Then he has to put the lure pottle into the cap and take off the lid. Then he has to screw in the gas canister and test the trap with a little stick. Then the lure thingy goes on top and all should be well. The thing is too that the lure pottle has on one side a little 10 cent coin inserted and that coin has to be removed to make the trap work. And guess what. At one stage Sus asks John have you removed the coin and he looks up and says do not know. So out comes again the lure thingy and coin still in there! So we have to check some other traps going back and some still have the coin in it! Not good! When we came home we counted all the coins we had and it seems to add up. All good.
 
After we had done all this five traps I say lets go up to the lakeside and check those traps up there. Sus stays in car and John and I go and check. First trap nothing. Second one had very juicy smelly smelly hedgehog in it. I remove it and John stays well away from it. Then second trap again had another hedgehog. Smelly too but not so much. Then third trap had another hedgehog! Smelly too just awful to get out of trap. One hedgehog was so ripe that when I tried to get it out holding a leg the leg just came off! Had to go down to the water to wash my gloves off of maggots!! Any volunteers?!
 
Now today was stormy day. It rained all night too. But in between there was some sunshine. So we set off hopeful for better weather. It was cold too. New snow on the mountain! Anyway we packed all remaining 20 traps into our three packs. Got to the gates and started walk down to Central Station and over fence and all along Piccadilly Line to coalmine. There we checked the five traps from yesterday but nothing happened.
 
Then we had to decide where to put these traps. A new line up the stream we did. And then from the coalmine back again along Piccadilly four more traps. Another line went down the stream through dense bush. Then it was onto Circle Line. Every 25 metres we put a trap. We had a rope with us. Susan was standing still and John would unravel the rope until 25 metres was out. Then I would bash into the bush to find a good tree to attach the traps to. Sometimes we had to use a saw. And up steep slopes too.
 
One after the other we did and at one point it was just pouring down with rain and we got quite wet and I got quite cold too. Susan was cold as well and I thought we might have to go back. Luckily I had a rain jacket with me. Saved the day. But we had a good system by now and made good progress and the sun finally came out again. Then when we deployed trap 29 I think it was exactly where I had a new possum trap. We got a bonus because there was a dead possum! After that it was only two more traps to do. But on the last trap, number 32, we were missing the lure pottle! Not sure what happened. Why was there not enough? So we just installed the trap and I have to go down next time with the lure and put it in.
 
I was and I think they were quite relieved that it was all done. 25 traps deployed in two days. Not bad. Hope the rats and stoats will like it. Tomorrow definitely I have a rest day. So three more hedgehogs and one more possum on the tally. Slowly catch the monkey.