Woodchuck au vin (Not OT? see last sentence)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/14/2009 10:45 AM, Alison Murie wrote:
>No. Skinned, cleaned & dismembered it, soaked it in a marinade of red
>wine, lemon juice, s & p, a little brown sugar  & a dash of cranberry
>juice  for a couple of hours, seared it in olive oil, covered in water
>& simmered for a couple of hours.
>------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for the recipe.  I suppose I could apply it to my present
soffit squirrels.

>I can't imagine any muncipality or state in these difficult times
>spending scarce resources on enforcing such rules.  Locally, the
>equivalent official will come on request to remove an animal one has
>trapped. A neighbor here does that with the groundhogs she captures,
>but I don't think he'd come after anyone doing it for him!

I think I'll refrain from this, though.  Woodchucks stick to the --
well, ground. But placing traps for my squirrels would require me to
ascend my (pitched) roof.  Or at least that's how the licensed
removers did it, presumably to place the trap right on the squirrels' trails.

Bill Mullins wrote:
>A large rat trap, baited with peanut butter, strategically placed,
>solved my soffit squirrel problem.

See above -- or could you strategically place it on the ground?  And
in Puritan Massachusetts, I feel constrained not to kill one.  Nor do
I care to drive far enough in the woods to release it (I have visions
of a distressed squirrel jumping onto the hood of my car, hanging on
to a windshield wiper, and pleading to be returned home to wife -- or
husband -- and children).  I also think that in Massachusetts the law
doesn't permit me to set a trap.  Nor do the licensed removers set
traps when there are likely to be infant children.

(And of course the bait was peanut butter -- a rodent is a rodent is a rodent.)

One day during a past visitation a perturbed 10- or 11-year-old girl
knocked on my back door, concerned about the squirrel thrashing and
vocalizing in a trap one story up.  I tried to reassure her that it
would not be killed, merely transported for felony.  (So there --
this topic is 18th-century related!)

Joel

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