Travelin' Jack is Back

Last week I wrote about the little black kitten that showed up briefly in my driveway and then settled himself on neighbor Susan's porch. Elizabeth bought cat food, and the two of them fed him--he was really skinny and ate voraciously, so we all thought he'd stick around, grow to be a rat repeller without ultrasonic sounds. The next day he disappeared. Susan worried about him, and I feared a predator had gotten him. Elizabeth said she was sure he'd come back. In absentia, Susan named him Travelin' Jack.
Today the music teacher at the school across the street put a notice on the neighborhood email that she'd found a lively, sweet, mischievous black kitten. Susan and Elizabeth rushed over to see her, and she delivered the kitten to Susan tonight. She'll keep him in the basement, visiting often, for a few days to encourage him to stick around. Elizabeth went over and said he curled right up on her lap and went to sleep.
We need a good varmint repeller---the predators (owls and hawks, some coyotes) that everyone sees are in the south end of the neighborhood and never seem to make it up to our area. Jaimie and Greg at the end of our long block are overrun with feral cats--but they too avoid us.
Other than it was a blah day. Do you ever have a day when you feel just "off"? That was me today. Don't know if it is the heat or fatigue (I woke at 4:40 and couldn't go back to sleep) or what. Still I managed to write 2,300 words--a respectable accomplishment for a day. Jacob was wild after school--second grade has released a flood of adrenaline apparently, plus he's overjoyed that he has no home work all week! Cancelled dinner plans didn't help my outlook, but I had a half of a pimiento sandwich, sliced cucumbers, and the best plumcot I've ever eaten--so ripe and sweet. Finished the day with wine on the deck with Susan and Elizabeth--nice ending to a blah day.
OK, pity party over. Tomorrow will be a better day.

The rats are back

I thought the rat repeller I bought was a great invention. The rats disappeared from our trees, and I settled back into rat-free contentment….until Elizabeth told me one morning last week that she was sitting at her desk, looked idly out the window to see a rat “frolicking” in the back yard. The next day it was three rats. They came and went from under the new deck. Jordan said all I had done in building the deck was to create a rat haven. In the few days I was away, the rats grew bolder. Elizabeth wrote me that it was time for the exterminator. See the picture above that she sent.

By serendipity, a couple of nights later as we sat on the deck, a black kitten, maybe three months old and way too skinny, came walking up the driveway. We held Sophie back as best we could, but she was ballistic and wanted that cat. The cat decided retreat was the best option, even though there was a fence between it and the dog. I posted about the stray kitty on the neighborhood email, only to be told that others had found kittens and apparently someone had dumped a litter in our neighborhood.

Next morning, lo and behold, the kitten had taken up residence on my neighbors’ front porch. It followed Jay when he went to get the paper and then settled down on the porch again, comfy as could be. Elizabeth bought food, and she and Susan fed it and gave it water, for which it was apparently grateful. We thought we had a rat catcher, and Elizabeth began to think of ways to transition it from Susan’s front porch to our driveway. Today, however, no one has seen it.

Meantime, Elizabeth’s yoga partner told us that mothballs work, so tonight she scattered mothballs under the deck (where my dog can’t get them), and we’re hoping for the best.

But I have to say there’s a weird psychic connection here. Elizabeth sees the rats. I’ve never seen one (okay I did see one in the trees tonight—there was a slight chance of rain and I took the repeller inside). I’ve never seen them “frolicking” in the yard, and I said when Elizabeth leaves for five days over Labor Day and we don’t see rats, I’ll know there’s a connection.

So she did some research on rats and the Chinese Year of the Rat. Rat traits are: cleverness, problem solving, order of things, and desire. They have a gift for getting what they want and can seek out and find what most cannot. They have the intelligence to figure out mazes and the nose so they may lock onto their desire. They can fit in places where others cannot. As long as there is an opening large enough to get their head through, the body will follow. Rat’s teeth are constantly growing, so gnawing through something as trivial as iron pipes makes them an undesirable force. There’s a legend about Rat being honored as the first animal of the Chinese zodiac and forever alienating Cat. But I won’t go into it here.

Suffice it to say, I’m worried about the pipes and the wiring in both houses on my property. Hope those mothballs work.

Goodbye, pests!

For a week or more, Elizabeth and I have been meeting on the deck about nine for "rat watch." She spots them; I don't. Sophie barks at them. As I think I posted the other night, one fell out of the sky right next to Elizabeth, skittered dazedly around the deck, and took off. Fortunately, Sophie did not catch it. Last night Elizabeth activated (that's my right brain again--I don't do well with printed instructions) the sonic rat repeller I ordered. We think it worked! There was much less activity in the trees, and though Sophie sat on alert watch, she didn't find much to bark at.
Neighbor Susan has a theory: hawks are nesting a few blocks away, and they drove the rats out of their area to ours. Her husband keeps offering to go after them with a pellet gun, but I know what goes up must come down, and I'm fearful it will come down on Sophie. So our faith is in the rat repeller. We'll go out tonight to see if it works, and then that's the last joint rat watch for almost two weeks, as Elizabeth leaves for India tomorrow, taking a group of yoga students, including Susan.
Rat watch has a side benefit. Elizabeth and I have always been close, since she was my help-study worker in the office twenty years ago, but now we seem to bare our souls out there while watching rats (maybe it's the wine!). At any rate, I will miss her these next two weeks. And I do feel the bond between us has grown much stronger. Thanks, rats! My mom always told me all things work to some good end.
But there's another pest we worried about--mosquitoes and the ever-present threat of West Nile Virus. We used to slather ourselves with repellent--fortunately Elizabeth put me on to an organic one that doesn't smell so bad and doesn't have Deet. But some guests say, "No, I want the poison, the stuff with Deet." Jordan is obsessive about protecting Jacob, because the mosquitoes love him.
Now we have, thanks to Mary Dulle, a mosquito repellent lantern (boy, those were really complicated instructions and I thank Elizabeth and my good friend Linda for putting it together). We've discovered the last two nights that it's really effective.
So we sit in a rat-free (we think) and mosquito-free environment and listen to the tiny fountain that Katie Sherrod gave me. I mean, is that bliss or not?

Oh, rats!

Late one night a couple of weeks ago, my oldest daughter, Megan, and I sat on the deck, when the party was winding down and most everyone had left. "You hear that squeaking sound?" she asked. I said I did, and she said with great sureness, "It's rats." When I reported this to Elizabeth a night or two later, she said, "Do we know that she knows this for sure?"
The next night, Elizabeth came in and said, "Megan was right. I saw them."
So we've met for rat watch (with wine, of course) every night about eight-thirty or so. Elizabeth's night vision is better than mine, as is her hearing unless I have my hearing aids in. So she sees them and hears them (sometimes I do, and I caught a glimpse of a bold one going from the tree to the gutter one evening).
Last night was the kicker--a baby rat fell out of the sky (actually probably from a tree) and landed too close for comfort to Elizabeth. She and my friend Linda had just been discussing talking to the rats, explaining to them, that we know they're hungry but they should move on. When the rat fell, I said, "Just talk to it, Elizabeth." She did, but it's unprintable.
The attraction has been my fig bush. Every year something eats the figs, and I thought it was birds and squirrels, so we put up tin pie plates. But those don't phase rats--and Elizabeth has seen them eating figs. Tonight the fig tree is bare of fruit, but the squeaking was less and we only had two sightings.
Sophie has been vigilant throughout. She sits alert on the edge of the porch and occasionally dashes off to bark at a tree or branch. She has a grand time, and I suspect she at least keeps the rats off the ground. She did chase the one that landed at Elizabeth's feet but fortunately didn't catch it.
Greg, the lawn guy, think they'll move on now that the food supply is diminished. But I've had rats in my attic (and bats in my belfry) before and don't want to repeat the experience. I've ordered a sonic rat repeller.
It's lovely to be so surrounded by trees, but it does have drawbacks. And some year, I'd like to have my fig crop. My mom loved figs and often had a huge crop in North Carolina.

Things I hate

One of the things I hate is technological problems. I want all my Tvs, my phones, my computer all to work without my having to worry about them. I watch the TV in my office a lot, even keep it on, muted, when I'm working. But last night I tried to change it to the food channel--my favorite--and it refused. I pushed all the right buttons and ended up with snow. Looked at the Dish receiver in the family room, and the TV 2 light wasn't on. Unfairly, I accused Jordan of doing something when she hooked up the DVD player for Jacob, though she swore innocence. I spent at least 45 minutes on the phone this afternoon with a technician, who had me running from one TV to the other. Finally got TV 2 back working.. But tonight it won't change channels--I'm stuck with NBC which isn't too bad since it's the one I watch most--but it's frustrating. I called again, did some more "experiments," and they're sending me a new remote. I guess those things can go suddenly blink--anyway that's what this one seems to have done.
On a happier electronic note, I'm slowly mastering the digital camera that Melanie and Jamie gave me for Christmas. I've taken a few pictures and last night, after a lesson from Jordan, I sent a picture of Jacob to Jamie. He had been afraid I'd just put the camera aside and not learn how to use it, so he was pleased. But as I told Jordan tonight, when I'm home alone there's not a lot to shoot. She suggested Scooby, but he's so goosey that if I even shift in my chair, he's up and in my face--not a photo op.
Another thing I hate: rats. I walked into the bathroom tonight to find Wywy the cat hovering over a dead baby rat--now, if I had not turned on the light and stepped carelessly--let's not even go there. Once again, there was no one else around to dispose of it, so I did--with copious paper towels, followed by much hand washing. That makes one dead adult rat in the yard, either two dead babies or one twice also in the yard, and two in the house. My neighbors and I are having the "rat tree" cut down Friday.
I'm still struggling with a cold and it occurred to me that I rarely have colds and I've had a lot of them this year. Then it occurred to me that I have an 18-mos. grandson whom I see quite a bit. Bingo!

Elections--and rats

What an odd combination for a column title. No, I mean no connection between politicians and rats. But today being the Iowa caucuses, I feel the sense of suspense, as though we were tonight letting a tiny number of people elect the next president--and we may well be doing that. As long as I can stay awake, I'll watch the results. As a dedicated Democrat, that's the race I'm most interested in naturally, but I honestly don't know how I'd vote if I were in Iowa tonight--and yet I would feel obligated to vote. I could easily acceept any of the top three candidates--and I really like Bill Richardson. As for the Republicans, Mike Huckabee scares me but I can't see that he'd be elected--hey, I've said that before and look what happened! Eight long years of George Bush. I like Romney--he's smooth, polished, professional, knowledgeable--but he stands for a lot of things I don't like--continuing the war in Iraq, outlawing abortion, and so on. What a muddle.
Today has been the day of the rat for me. I think I recounted on this space that I found a large dead rat in the yard some time ago and then a dead mouse in the house earlier this week--in retrospect, I think it was a dead baby rat. I found another of those in the yard yesterday (though it had vanished by today when I wanted to show it to the exterminator--I do NOT wish to consider what happened to it!). The exterminator said he wouldn't guess that I have a herd in the attic, but he either saw four rats or one rat four times. Mostly they were small and young, so there's a nest up there. He was interesting, because he can smell them--a talent I am grateful not to have. He doesn't rush in and blanket treat but carefully studies where they are, what he thinks are their paths through the house, etc.--and then that's where he treats.
My neighbors and I are going to have the dead tree between our houses taken down--it's thickly covered with ivy and we think rats are nesting up there. Pat, the Cowtown Bugstomper, said it's possible, but when the tree comes down, more rats are likely to seek refuge in my house. So he'll come back next week to check the baits, etc.
And tonight, standing in the kitchen, I distinctly heard clawing in the wall behind the wine rack. I knocked on the wall and it went away. Yuck!