After my post about the critters eating my tomatoes, Renie and Mom both texted me within a half an hour of each other to tell me of a homemade method: fill a 5-gallon bucket 2/3 with water, sprinkle sunflower seeds over the top of the water, and add a ramp for the varmints to get in. Once they fall in they can’t get out.

Last night the two homemade bucket traps did not yield any corpses but I got another field mouse in the black commercial trap. It looks like one of the black traps is more sensitive than the other, because I’m consistently yielding one dead varmint per two traps. However, no tomatoes gave their lives overnight, which is good because two of the Paul Robesons are nearing ripeness.