{"id":2264,"date":"2007-06-18T18:06:13","date_gmt":"2007-06-18T23:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.1.5\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2016-12-08T01:06:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T01:06:05","slug":"lizard-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/garden-critters\/lizard-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizard Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I went out to check on the tomatoes. So far we&#8217;re not having very good luck. The very first fruits were munched on by caterpillars when they were about the size of a cherry.<\/p>\n<p>A month later, as the first &#8216;Black Krim&#8217; tomato started to change color, we covered the plants with bird-netting. However the day we decided the first &#8216;Black Krim&#8217; was going to be ready, we went out to pick it and something (probably raccoons) had beaten us to it. I don&#8217;t see how they got in and out of the netting without making a mess or getting tangled up in it but they did. A couple of days later we picked a semi-ripe tomato and let it ripen inside. Maybe we ate it too early, but we weren&#8217;t much impressed with its flavor.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/20070618a.jpg\" alt=\"lizard\" width=\"400px\" \/><br \/><i>&#8216;Black Krim&#8221; tomatoes ripening.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>That was a couple of weeks ago. Now a lot more are starting to ripen and we&#8217;re licking our lips. So I went out to check on them this afternoon and saw a lizard (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zo.utexas.edu\/research\/txherps\/lizards\/urosaurus.ornatus.html\">Tree Lizard<\/a>, I think, or maybe a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zo.utexas.edu\/research\/txherps\/lizards\/sceloporus.olivaceus.html\">Texas Spiny Lizard<\/a>). Unfortunately it saw me too and made dash for it, right into the bird-netting.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily it didn&#8217;t thrash around but held very still even when I got close to try to free it. It had somehow managed to get half its quite large body through the 1\/2 inch square mesh. I got some manicure scissors and carefully cut the netting away from its delicate claws and arms. It held very, very still. Then as carefully as I could, I tried over and over to get the scissors under the mesh that was wrapped around its body. When I snipped my final snip, it dashed past me faster than I could see it. Whew! I was glad it held still long enough for me to free it. I&#8217;d be very upset if the birds or fire ants had gotten there first.<\/p>\n<p>Now how did it manage to get under the netting in the first place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/20070618b.jpg\" alt=\"lizard\" width=\"400px\" \/><br \/><i>A lizard gets caught up in the bird netting around the tomato plants.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[289],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5047,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/5047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}