Bill's Secret Project

Yesterday, husband Bill finally let me take a picture of his new "girlfriend," the project he's been spending all his free time with. It is (ta-da!), done and ready to be installed in the pond.

When his baby ducklings disappeared, Bill vowed to track down the culprits and bring them to justice. With the help of the instructions on the internet (fount of all knowledge), he built The Turtle Trap:

This will sit semi-submerged in the pond like an iceberg (most of it below the water, only the ramp where Bill has his hand and the top part above the surface), and capture any snapping turtles we have in the pond by luring them with rotten chicken bones suspended over the open water.

The turtle smells the bait, discovers the ramp and climbs it, reaches the top platform and overbalances the "tippy" plank, which dumps him or her into the large 4 x 4 foot cage. The large bent-nail spikes around the top edge prevent the turtle from climbing the wire and getting out over the edge again:

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get the evil biting turtles out again, once they are trapped. I'm thinking along the lines of a steel mesh pike-net, or perhaps a pair of four-foot forceps. And then what? A trial or summary execution? Perhaps relocation to a turtle re-education camp? I'm not sure we're cut out for the ultimate responsibility of playing parole board to murderous amphibians.

Making the pond safe for nesting wood ducks is turning out to be a little more complicated than we anticipated.