"June Hughes" wrote in message
...
In message .com, judith
lea writes

Mike Lyle wrote:

I don't think it has to be beer: I believe water flavoured with jam
will do as well -- but if you leave that for a day or so it'll ferment
a bit anyway. Presumably a weak sugar solution would work too, but I
haven't tried it. You need to cover them to keep other creatures out,
by the way -- we don't want too many drunken rats and hedgehogs around
the place.

Mike you would not believe the drunk rats that are leaping around my
linen line in the garden. They are so drunk, I called in the
exterminators, I do wish they had not come in a van marked vermin
control, what do the neighbours think, I worried.

It appears, so the rat man told me, that it is the apples from the
trees that do it, so I have been picking up all the ones which came
down in the wind. When I went to hang out the linen ,I promise you,
they came to within a few feet of me, 4 of them, I was rooted to the
spot, Edward appeared at the landing window with the shotgun, pointing
at them, I screamed, no, you haven't got your specs on, to which he
replied "don't be silly, I'm just adjusting the aim, now go inside
before I start shooting". Go inside? how could I with an army of rats
between me and the house. Well aimed y fronts got rid of them.

Apples, eh? Oh Blimey - we have hundreds of windfalls but there is no way
I am going out there in this cold. They will have to wait until morning.
I usually pick and freeze them but with one thing and another, I have only
used a few this year.

I've never seen windfall apples as a problem, but you have me worried now,
I've always assumed that the holes in them were caused by the birds.

Alan

--
June Hughes