Rats!

Norway rat enjoying the sun and a few garden scraps.

If you have a garden, you probably have rats.  In fact, if you don't have a garden, you may have them anyways.  Well, unless you live in Alberta.  Then you just have to put up with infestations of mice.

This sumer I noticed that some of my garden veggies were being mysteriously knawed on.  Beets, cantalope, corn, sunflowers, beans, and even carrots were the target of some organisms' menacing incisors.  I set out rat traps using peanut butter - always a good bait, but was thwarted by the fact that the ants swarmed and took it all before any pest found it.

Using strips of meat, I replaced the traps and soon had four rodent carcasses, two rats and two mice.  Even with that dent in the population, the problem persisted.  I found a cantelope sitting on top of my retaining wall later on, apparently a resident squirrel had carted it away.  The rodents were clearly winning, but I refused to put out poison because of the risk to other animals and owls.  Yes, you heard right, rats eat the bait, become posioned, and are eaten by owls that, in turn, die from the strictnine-poisoned rats.  So, its either give up the garden or trap them.

I cleaned out the garden this fall after everything was harvested.  I had a pile of tomato plants piled up that were destined for the compost bin.  As I was moving it all, I had two black, furry forms run out from underneath.  Clearly, they haven't gone anywhere even though the garden is done.

Then there was today.  I took my dog out into the back yard and spotted a mouse-like creature crawling on top of a retaining wall.  I thought I would take a picture of it and got out my cell phone.  As I got closer and closer to it, it never moved but just kept foraging for any organic matter it could consume.  I got within 10 inches of it or so.  The photo I took is not enlarged; it filled the frame without having to zoom in.  It then wandered away, unconcerned with just having its photo taken.

So, my new plan is to set up a few rat traps (again) and try to keep their numbers from increasing over winter.  I will never get rid of them, but maybe I can reduce their presence.  And maybe, just maybe, next year I can harvest a cantelope.  Wouldn't that be nice.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com