Found and Lost

Before I went on my Canada hike I had found one of the gopher traps I had lost last summer. That was a surprise to find it after a year. It wasn't like I hadn't been in this part of the pasture recently. I found the trap less than a hundred feet from where I had lost the trap. The trap hadn't had a chain to secure it to the stake in the ground, but two pieces of wire.

Last year I found the stake and one piece of wire. I looked around for the trap but couldn't find it. I thought a hawk took the trap and a trapped gopher. Perhaps, but now another possibility was that the gopher ran off with the trap as their efforts to free themselves unhooked the wire.

What was strange when I found the trap was that I found it in pieces. Every piece that could be taken apart, was. I have never seen that before. It was like a person took the trap apart and laid it out on the ground. I have no idea how the trap came apart.

I put all the pieces back together and now have another working trap. Horray.

All was well until I checked my traps today. I hadn't checked them since before going on my hike. While my right foot is still sore, my left foot is back to normal. It has been some days since I checked the traps so I decided to put shoes on and limp out to the pasture.

Most traps were as I left them. If no gophers triggered them after over four days, time to move them. I gathered up four traps and the four stakes and crossed to the north side of the field. After I set the trap I found I only had two traps left.

Where is the other one?

I crossed back to where I had started and searched for the missing trap along the way. The grass is not short and there are plenty of weeds growing in this part of the pasture as I have not sprayed here yet. No matter how much I limped back and forth I couldn't find the missing trap.

Augh!

How could I lose a trap? I was not happy. Is it going to take another year to find this trap? I hope not.