Our summer started with Monte and I sitting on the back patio after dinner chatting while a rat ran across our yard.
This rat looked like something the makers of Jurassic World
concocted in a lab to be "scarier" than the plain old average rat.
It was a Ratasaurus.
Seeing it set me off.
I'd already NOT planted various tomatoes in my garden like I usually do so as not to feed any lingering rats after the February rats we found dead in the dryer vent.
I only planted basil and cilantro.
Do rats like herbs??
Monte bought big traps and set them out in various places around the yard.
One was dramatically moved the next day but there was no rat in it.
We have not seen any rats since.
We felt like a message had been sent: no food, lots of traps, get out.
The rats moved on.
I was digging in the back of our garage today looking for something.
I smelled something that I thought might be on the bottom of my shoe.
I checked. It wasn't.
I kept moving stuff in my search, when the stench got stronger.
I actually said out loud to no one,
"Ugh. It smells like death!"
I was right.
I spotted a dead rat.
It was big.
Ratasaurus big.
Or it had been big.
It was so dead that it wasn't three dimensional anymore.
I dropped what I was holding and ran inside to call Monte.
When he got home he shoveled up the dead rat carcass, made sure I captured just how dead and stiff it was and tossed it into the field by our house.
I watched as Monte walked to the field. I thought he'd do a little low toss into the base of the corn growing in the field.
Nope.
He swung the shovel up high over his head and the stiff rat sailed far and deep and stiff into the corn.
I do hope this is the last of my rat stories.
