Killing Gophers II

Weather: We’ve gone from very cold (6 degrees F) on Wednesday to very warm (60 degrees F) yesterday. A 56 degree swing in four days. There’s still ice in shadows on western sides of fences and buildings, but the driveway gets soft in the afternoon. It’s only safe to drive in and out early in the morning, and never safe to walk in some areas.

Last snow: 1/16. Week’s low: 6 degrees F. Week’s high: 60 degrees F in the shade.

What’s green: The junipers, yuccas, and other evergreens, grape hyacinths, vinca, coral bell, and blue flax leaves

What’s turned red or purple: Sandbar willow and some rose branches; alfilerillo and coral beards tongue leaves

What’ turned brown or yellow: Weeping willow, arborvitae and some other evergreen leaves

Tasks: I called my tree trimmer on Thursday to schedule an estimate. He said he hadn’t been working this week because of the cold. To someone from Michigan, who grew up with tales of Paul Bunyan, that seemed a little odd.

Logging was done in winter when the ground was so hard sleds could be used to move trees from forests to shipping points. While there were professional timbermen, many were local farmers, often young men trying to accumulate the cash to buy land.

Then I looked at the average coldest temperatures in the northern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula. In Manistee, on the Lake Michigan side it’s 30 degrees F; in Saginaw on the Lake Huron side it’s 28.9. The Michigan figures are higher than our average low of 14, [1] though we’re much farther south.

Lakes and altitude make a difference. In New Mexico, no one is used to the kind of winter temperatures we had this past week, and some of the equipment may not have lubricants that are effective when it’s that cold.

When men aren’t used to the cold, they get hurt. And, probably many did in Michigan in the logging era when OSHA didn’t exist and hired men were deemed expendable.

Men living at home today call in sick when they don’t want to work. Men in isolated lumber camps didn’t have that choice if they wanted to eat.

Animal sightings: Everything is staying hidden

Weekly update: I discovered I made a mistake a few weeks ago when I said the gopher killer I bought contained arsenic. I found a picture of the label that showed it was strychnine. Not a lot safer: a lethal does of arsenic for humans is 1 to 3 milligrams; [2] it’s 1.5 to 2 milligrams for the other. [3]

When I was researching ways to get rid of the animal that was burrowing everywhere, I read that ranchers used to drive their trucks into infested fields, connect a hose to the exhaust, and pump carbon monoxide into the burrows. I thought about that but lacked a hose and clamps, and didn’t want to drive my car over the native grasses.

I couldn’t find the original reference this week, but learned online that it was a common practice. So common, that there are companies today that sell portable machines one can use to do the same thing.

But do they work? Gophers are solitary creatures. So while, there may be a number living in a field, each has its own network of tunnels. One can’t stick a hose anywhere and clear an entire field. One has to find the central point in each network.

In the meantime, the gophers have heard the abnormal activity above ground. Roger Baldwin found they could sense the presence of the gas, and immediately blocked off that part of their tunnel. One of the available machines was about 68% effective with gophers, but for some reason was much more useful on ground squirrels.

The cost of the machines is high. One doesn’t buy a tractor or truck to kill a rodent; one uses something at hand. However, machines that served no other purpose ranged from $1,300 to $15,000 in 2016.

Notes on photographs:
1. Cliff rose (Purshia mexicana) has kept green in its leaves this winter; 11 December 2019.

2. Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) leaves have faded in the cold; they’ll be replaced in the spring; 9 February 2020.

3. Label from a gopher killer product.

End notes:
1. Wikipedia. "Manistee, Michigan," "Saginaw, Michigan," and "Española, New Mexico."

2. "Arsenic Toxicity." Centers for Disease Control. Environmental Health and Medicine Education website.

3. "Strychnine." Centers for Disease Control. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health website.

4. Roger A. Baldwin and Ryan Meinerz. "Assessing the Efficacy of Carbon Monoxide Producing Machines at Controlling Burrowing Rodents." Vertebrate Pest Control Research Advisory Committee. Final report, June 2016.