• Poetry
  • Bicycling
    • Bicycle Touring
    • Seattle to Banff 2002
  • Exploring
    • Northwesting
  • Living
    • Gardening
  • Art & Community
    • Art Projects
  • Favorite Things
  • Poetry
  • Bicycling
    • Bicycle Touring
    • Seattle to Banff 2002
  • Exploring
    • Northwesting
  • Living
    • Gardening
  • Art & Community
    • Art Projects
  • Favorite Things

I am Against Rats

28 Jun ’06

Lacking diligence, it is not possible to keep chickens in the city without also having rats.

The rats here are large and brazen. They like chicken feed, perhaps more than the chickens do. They’ve dug tunnels, gnawed holes in the neighbor’s fence and the coup, and taken over the wood-pile. It’s obvious that while I’ve been gone, the chickens have been nothing but a mere invitation to chaos.

I forgot the anticipatory struggle with the staple to free the mechanism for the trap, the nerves on edge setting the damn things lest I break a finger, the shifty sneaking around the chicken coup, plotting the perfect location. I always keep awake too late listening for the whack of death sprung down on the greedy, dirty rat! Ah! Waa haa haa! I am against rats.

The Count of Success!
Sunday: Rat killed, 1 with Austrian + bucket (drowned the rat)
Monday: Rats killed, 2 with cheese in traps
Tuesday: Rats killed, 2 with peanut butter in traps

ChickensHome
Share

Living

You might also like

A House Fire
4 Sep ’19
Garden in Watercolor
27 May ’15
Mother’s Day Again…
13 May ’12

4 Comments


Knox Gardner
30 Jun ’06 at 10:36 pm
Reply

Wednesday Rats Killed 0: Are they getting smarter?

Thursday Rats Killed 0: What the hell? WASPS

Friday Rats Killed 2, plus a wounded escapee (please please don’t crawl under my house to die), trap + peanut butter.



Knox Gardner
2 Jul ’06 at 12:25 pm
Reply

Saturday: 2 Rats Killed, traps with peanut butter (moved to under the chicken coup). Another rats escapes!

And again, no rats caught at night. And that is very very odd. Daytime only rats? What the hell?



Knox Gardner
2 Jul ’06 at 9:50 pm
Reply

Sunday: Rats killed 2.

How long will this go on? It seems that finally, that we are winning the war against the rats.

Today, I actually did not see a rat until late in the evening, when both rats were trapped. That is a recent first. Ah the days when you could walk up to the hen house and NOT SEE A RAT. I loved those days.

Now we just can’t let our gaurd down.



gwadzilla
3 Jul ’06 at 5:04 am
Reply

I had a war with small mice this winter
they killed themselves off as fast as I could kill them myself

had to “follow my nose”
which lead me to the remains of a dead mouse

tried a live trap…

it never worked

poison and the classic trap did the trick

that in conjunction with warm weather

they will be back with the winter
not the same ones
but
some mice



Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Hear a Poem: Autumn Almost

    http://knoxgardner.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Four-Autumn.mp3
  • See a Film: The Bed and Buckskin

    https://youtu.be/vUM9c78EIRM



© Copyright Knox Gardner 2004-2021