Wonderful Wildlife-

 Up before dawn, I find myself on my patio watching the sunrise. 
I'm also present as our deer make their way to their daytime sleeping quarters and the family of geese on our pond make their way from the center of the water to the bank to eat their breakfast.
And then there's our squirrels-
We have four hickory trees on our property and the squirrels absolutely LOVE them. In the early morning hours I have counted as many as ten of the little grey "tree rats" chasing one another around our property.
They're fun to watch. But...
They're also destructive as all get-out.
They chew on our home.

We live in a home made of logs. I think squirrels are one of those rodents that must chew in order to wear their teeth down. When they chew on the logs of the exterior of our home the sound is amplified throughout our home. It's disheartening and a little helpless feeling to hear the sound of your home being eaten away by these pests-
Why aren't they just taking advantage of the hickory trees?

And then it happened-
They started gnawing on the screens of our upstairs windows. 
Sara Jean was confronted in our upstairs bathroom by a squirrel that had eaten a hole in that screen, and it was the straw "that broke the camel's back". 
I got the "havaheart" trap out of storage.

Using sunflower seeds as bait, over two days now, I have trapped NINE of the little grey devils. 
They're still a pain in my backside because I want to treat them humanely-
Each time we catch one I load the trap into our car and transport, then release them in a stand of trees about a mile away from our home.

So we're giving them  a new lease on life. A neighbor suggested we paint the tails of our captured rodents red so we know if they're finding their way back to chew on our home.
We haven't done that.That may be a mistake. 
Our hickory trees are mighty tempting.