75 pocket gophers

I may be done trapping pocket gophers this year.  I'll see if any gophers decide to move back into the hayfield or the pastures by the end of the year.  I had only three traps for much of the year so trapping was slow going.  In the Fall Donna gave me three of her pocket gopher traps.  Now that she has horses on her pasture her pocket gophers decided to leave so she didn't need the traps now.  So my trapping picked up speed as I now had six traps.

I ended up trapping 75 pocket gophers.  That includes a pocket gopher trapped on Ruth's property to my south and one pocket gopher on her granddaughter's property where I get apples for my cattle.

And I even trapped a pocket gopher on my big island.  That is a first.  I never ever had seen a pocket gopher or pocket gopher dirt mounds on the island before.  How did this pocket gopher ever get to the island?  It had to swim.  I guess it did.   And why the island?   Pocket gophers have tunnels two or three levels deep.  On the pasture's low areas near the river I don't have pocket gophers as they don't want their tunnels to flood when the water level gets high in the Spring.  The gopher on the island could have survived next Spring as the island doesn't flood, but I imagine some of his tunnels would have gotten some water in them.  Anyway, I trapped the pocket gopher on the island.

Here are some of the hawthorn trees on the island.   Back when I was checking the trap a few weeks ago that is when the high wind event started and had wind gusts up to 52 miles per hour.   I was on the island and didn't feel the wind.  I could hear the wind and see the dirt blowing from the ridge to my west.  The dense hawthorn trees slowed the wind down.