Finally, a Use for the Original Favorite Mystery Meat

We recently started taking the paper. The Birmingham News called us with a great deal on a weekend subscription for a limited time so we said, "Hey, why not?" 

It has been fun the last couple of weeks to read the Sunday Comics, maybe do the crossword puzzle. I have a whole stack of coupons waiting to be clipped when I can sit down in peace without little hands trying to grab the scissors. Besides that, now maybe I can keep up with what's going on in the world a little bit better.

Sunday afternoon David came across an interesting article by Mike Bolton, (no, not the mullet wearing singer known for such early 90s ballads as How Am I Supposed to Live Without You and Time, Love and Tenderness). This Bolton is an outdoors columnist. He had written an article about critter control. For anyone who doesn't know, there are a lot of critters in Alabama, many of which are dangerous and/or meddlesome. In our short 2 1/2 years here we have seen foxes, armadillos, opossums, skunks, frogs, several varieties of snakes, large spiders, mice, etc, etc. You may even recall that the boys found a boar skull in the woods. So yeah. Lots of critters. Ol' Mike proposes some innovative ways of taking care of some of the peskier varieties. Part of  the column was written as follows:

Water moccasins - If you have water moccasins beside your lakefront home, purchase some Spam and ping pong balls. Rub the ping pong balls down with Spam and put them at the water's edge. The snakes will swallow them, thinking they are eggs.

Snakes' mouths hinge so they can ingest something big. The other end of the snake doesn't hinge.

I had to laugh. Especially since the author says "You'll probably laugh and think I'm joshing you, but I'm being serious here, for a change." The whole article is full of innovative problem solving tips for dealing with some of the aforementioned critters. You can read it in it's entirety here. Enjoy!