Margaret and Jack found this Coral snake in their front yard yesterday morning.

Margaret found this Water Moccasin climbing up the wall next to her bathroom. That is a yard stick so you have some idea of the length. Two snakes in one morning and it made them late for Church. Well killing serpents is a good reason.

I'm not sure who is holding this snake but I can assure everyone that it is NOT me. I don't like touching them dead or alive. I think this is the one that was climbing up the wall outside Margaret and Jack's bathroom.

I went out for a short walk this morning and took pictures of some of the wild flowers we have growing around here.

Wild flowers.

We have a Butterfly with the wings closed.

We have a Butterfly with the wings open.

Purple flowers.

These flowers are so beautiful. Their color doesn't really come out in the picture. They are deep puple, almost a dark red.

We have yellow and white flowers.

Margaret was very excited to find this while Jack and her were working down at Pebble Beach yesterday. It is always exciting to find something that you know a person made over who knows how many 100s of years ago. 

Notice the odd colors on this side of the spear head. I wonder if it might be blood stains left there after 100s of years. Maybe this isn't a spear head after all, it might have been used as a knife. Does anyone know for sure? 

A squirrel is having its Easter morning breakfast of corn in my front yard. I guess it couldn't find any Easter bunny eggs or better yet a chocolate Easter bunny. It seems to like the corn just fine. Maybe it is the same squirrel that was down at the cage. I guess it looks like a smart squirrel but then again, I'm not real sure what a smart squirrel looks like. 

So far we have managed to catch two species in the cage. The other day I was down there and we had caught a pigeon. It was flying around inside the cage with the gate wide open. It finally managed to find its way out. Then last night Margaret caught a Jack in the cage. He too, managed to find his way out.

Jack is setting up the bait for the trap. Read the next post to find out what happened to the ear of corn and what we are trying now. 

The ear of corn trick didn't fool anyone. Some smart critter, probably a squirrel, pulled the ear of corn up by the string, ate the corn and half the cob and then lowered the half cob back into the cage. It was also looped around the re-bar and the wire mesh a couple of times meaning the critter did it on purpose or maybe it dropped the cob and had to pull it up again. Smart critters we have in Texas. So now we are going to try tying the string to a small pail full of corn. It will take something bigger than a squirrel to pick up the pail full of corn.  

Margaret is pouring Deer corn in the cage. This will be used to lure the pigs inside the trap. We will also put Deer corn leading up to the gate. 

We are almost ready to set the trap. Notice the piece of wood holding the gate open. It will be important later in the story. 

Jack is cutting a notch around the center of the ear of corn so he can tie a string around the ear of corn and the string will stay in place. My thought was that the corn was soft enough so the string would get between the rows of corn but Jack wanted to make sure. I think he was hungry because he commented on how sweet the corn was and thought we might be wasting it on pigs. (He held back on several ears of corn.) 

Margaret is lowering the ear of corn in the precise location as directed by Jack so the the ear is centered over the Deer corn on the ground and over the exact piece of re-bar so the string will not get tangled in the wire mesh around the cage. 

So we have the cage full of Deer corn and a nice juicy ear of corn dangling from the top of the cage. Jack will tie the string holding the ear of corn to the piece of wood you saw earlier holding the trap door open. The pigs will come in and grab the ear of corn and the string will pull the piece of wood out and the trap door will close and we will have caught a pig red handed stealing corn.