Got up, had a bacon croissant sandwich for breakfast, went to work and found a parking space. Home for lunch (it’s my half day) for vegetable soup I made last night. Does it get better than that?
The answer seems to be “no”. Nothing in the rest of the day, even watching Mega Shark Versus Kolossus and eating a Magnum choc ice, though good, failed to improve on the morning.
I suppose that an outbreak of world peace and a sudden dose of common sense influencing international politics would improve on a bacon sandwich, but it didn’t happen and so the day is tailing off. Julia will be making burritos for tea and Pointless Celebrities is on soon, so there are still things to look forward to, despite this anti-climax.
Yesterday, I found out a very interesting fact. Two, in fact. One is that rats and mice are unable to pass wind, in either direction. Julia said something very unkind when I told her this, but as I said, blame my healthy high-fibre diet. The second is that simply calling yourself “organic” doesn’t make you a nice person.
The reason I say this is because I found out how organic gardeners kill rats. Unfortunately, with neighbours who put out too much bird food and have BBQs and decking (all good stuff if you are a rat) I am forced to take action from time to time. I don’t want to poison a cat and I don’t want rats in the garden, so I use a trap. Organic gardeners have another method.
They don’t use poison, because that would be bad. They use baking soda, delivered in a number of ways,, usually mixed with peanut butter or a flour and sugar mix. The rats eat the baking soda, the soda reacts and produces carbon dioxide when it hits the digestive acids of the rat. And the rat, instead of releasing the gas, inflates.
You aren’t actually poisoning the rats, you are inflating them until their internal organs rupture. This, to me, seems a lot worse than simply poisoning or trapping them. Maybe I’m not cut out to be an eco-warrior.
Goodness me that is barbaric. I called in a rat catcher who laid his poison and said when Mr Rat felt poorly he’d go back to where he had his nest just like a human to die peacefully. I hope he was telling me the truth.
I think he was. One thing I do share with rats is the intake of warfarin – mine to stop my blood clotting, so in smaller doses. The rat is fed enough to cause internal bleeding which, though it may be unpleasant for a few moments right at the end, is a comparatively humane answer to the control of rats. And yes, I too believe they crawl somewhere quiet, as you rarely see a dead rat in the open.
We tolerate our marauding neighbour’s cat on there grounds that it keeps down the rats
Cats are one of those subjects on which I am in two minds – loved our cats, though I admit to loving them less when they laid waste to the garden wildlife. And the day I woke up and got my feet entangled in the cold entrails of a dead mouse as I made my way to the toilet was a definite low point.
I may have received more information from this post than I could handle.
It is a post with much to think about, and is the first time I have ever felt myself having sympathy for a rat.
I agree. 🙂
🙂