Oh, Rats

Before we built our home here, the land we live on was a hay field. This has many positives and negatives. Mostly negatives, really. Oh, the landscaping we've done, the earth we've moved, the rocks we've picked and the grass we've planted. Yearly.

And then there are the animals. I know for a certain that the small wooded area we have is infested with snakes, chipmunks, rabbits and other small woodland creatures. And we're okay with this. I know that the hedge between us and the neighbors' fields is lined with groundhog holes. I had issues with them the first few years until they learned that I planted gardens for our eating pleasure and not theirs. After that was established they just moved further down the hedge and we're good with them now, too.

But it's the rats that have my panties in a wad. I put up with any number of God's creatures with good enough graces, but rats are on my hate list. I don't know why. I like mice as long as they stay out of my house. They're cute little things with black eyes and whiskered noses. But rats are freaks of nature that have nothing but cold-blooded evil designed against me. I am convinced of this and nothing you can say will ever change my mind.

And guess what - dog kennels are proven to attract rats. I'm just so lucky as to have a dog kennel, too. Yeah me. The rats took over the vacated groundhog holes in the hedge and it took me a few years to realize that their numbers were increased to hostile-take-over quantities. So in order to try to keep the upper hand in this warfare, every spring and fall I break out the rat poison. Many, many boxes of rat poison. I scatter the packs liberally under things, down holes, behind things and anywhere that a rat can go but my dogs cannot. (This alone takes some creativity.) And then I sit back and wait.

It only takes a few days to see results, and nothing warms the cockles of my heart like nearly stepping on a dead rat on the way to feed the dogs in the morning. A dead rat is one less rat that will eat dog food and birth many ratty babies.

But this year I ran into a problem that I've not dealt with before. The dogs have decided that rats make excellent snacks. In reality, if the kennel dogs want to clean up the carnage I've wrought they can have at it. But the house dogs live with me and I do not appreciate carrion breath any more than the next person.

(Don't panic, I've done all the research and poison is made nowadays so that when the dead are ingested by the dogs, the dogs are not harmed. Trust me, I've checked. I couldn't take that kind of risk with our kennel.)

But two days ago? An entire colony of rats must have made their final death march to the front of the house, lined up along the foundation, and laid down to die. I am convinced that this must have been two days ago because the rotten stench coming in my window is enough to make me want to hurl. And I have a stomach of steel. I cannot imagine how either I or the pack of house dogs missed this line of rotting flesh but I know it's there. My watering eyes tell me it's so. And I will not be able to open my windows tonight while I sleep for a breath of fresh air.

Stupid, stupid rats. May they all die a slow and painful death and have their eyes pecked out by buzzards.