Rats with Furry Tails, Rats with Wings
After I came back inside from helping load up the market load, it was still only 6:15 and dark, so I put my nightgown back on and got under my nice soft blanket and lay down on my couch for a while. I listened to some more of the Michelle Obama book (my entertainment for the last six weeks, in bits) and then moved on to Krista Tippett.
As I was idly looking out the window at the new day, I saw a young squirrel diligently trying to collect just the right sized twig from the branch it was sitting on. It sat on its back legs, chewed the twig to the right length, using both hands to stabilize the wood and then started to carry it up the tree. Somehow it dropped the twig. Damn. Went back to find another one. This time the squirrel chose a shorter piece and went quickly back up the tree. And then it jumped out of my sight. But that's when I knew this squirrel was up to no good, from my point of view.
I went upstairs to our bedroom to look out the window, to verify my suspicions. I confirmed that the squirrel was jumping onto the highest part of our roof, and therefore was undoubtedly building a nest on the roof, underneath the solar panels. That damned squirrel is trying to burn the house down. Our neighbors actually had a fire on their roof that started with squirrels chewing on wires. Up until recently our house has been taller than the trees, but now the trees are creating convenient access to the roof.
This can be addressed, and we will make our house inaccessible to those rats with furry tails. Squirrels are quite low on my list of cute creatures in nature. In the fall they methodically eat holes in pumpkins, squash, eat the kernels off decorative corn, and leave a mess wherever they go. These vegetables have already been picked and hauled and stored, the squirrels are not finding their food in the wild. They are taking from a pile that is not theirs.
If I were a true nature lover, I would have a perspective that included the needs of the squirrels. And deer and geese and mice and voles. I do not love any of them.
But all of those critters have much in common. They are opportunists who find a place to live and eat that is as comfortable and easy as possible. Because we farm in the deep suburbs, we get to interact with all of them. The more you watch them and see how they settle in, the more you appreciate how they just do not care one bit about the human perspective. We are on our own.
Squirrels and mice have nothing better to do than to chew a hole in a building that is constructed to exclude them. They have all day and all night. They will stop chewing for a moment if you happen to be nearby but they will get right back to work as soon as you get out of the way. We consider it a major victory if we can plug the holes as fast as they make them so we can successfully hoard a winter's worth of sweet potatoes in a room that is heated to 60 degrees. You can understand why a mouse would be so focused on getting into that room for the winter.
I went to a class about "coddling" goose eggs about ten years ago. What I learned was that I don't really want to get into the business of coating goose eggs with peanut oil, especially not if it means I have to chase the mama goose off the nest with an umbrella. Instead what I learned is that the goal is to keep geese from ever building a nest on our property. If that happens, we will be the home base for generations to come. So I have dedicated myself to chasing geese off the fields every single time I see them, even back when I was coming home from yoga, soaking wet -- I would drive to the gate and walk through the snow in my barefeet inside of crocs, waving my arms and yelling so the flock of 24 rats with wings would get off the field. This winter when I was stuck on the couch for a month, I delegated that task to Michael L who was extremely diligent about making sure no geese took up residence in our best vegetable field. This practice is so ingrained in our winter/spring lives that our farm 3 year old knows just what to do: the other day her mother and I were weeding spinach while the 3 year old and the 9 month old entertained themselves next to us. Two geese came in for a landing. We waved our arms and they went back up, but then they decided to come in a little further away from us. Those scumbags. We told Zoey to go chase them. She got up from the spinach patch and took off on her skinny little legs, waving her arms and yelling at the geese (never stopping to consider that they were just about the same size as she is). She had to get pretty close before they took off, but they did leave. Zoey wins.
Killing things is hard and yucky. We don't kill many animals, we just try to discourage them or get them to move on, or we build barricades. I spend a ridiculous amount of time -- mostly for my own entertainment -- filling up groundhog holes with really disgusting compost. I have learned that they really don't like that. They are rather fastidious creatures. Rotten tomatoes in your entryway is just gross. I did put a used chicken carcass down into a groundhog hole last year, but I knew that was going to bring in the foxes, and it did. We don't mind foxes so much because they don't eat vegetables. They do eat rabbits and mice, and we approve of that. But they also love to poop on bales of hay, and that is not a nice habit.
Actual rats we do kill. They cannot be tolerated. There is nothing, not one single thing, that makes a rat okay. We poison them, we trap them, we fill their holes with gravel. If you kill a lot at once, then they are gone for a long time. In general, we don't have rats except at the very beginning of the season when they have had a long time to get comfortable in and around the greenhouse. They are just about the most horrifying vermin that exist.
Well, raccoons are pretty close. They are beyond amoral -- they enjoy killing as a game. They are like humans gone awry. This is a very old story, but there was a time when I went to the chicken house to feed the hens and found a scene of carnage, with headless chickens, blood spattered everywhere. I filled a wheelbarrow with mangled, dead chickens. I don't love chickens but it was heartbreaking to think about the night those ladies endured, with a raccoon or multiple raccoons rampaging around killing for the fun of it. I will never forgive any raccoons for that and I do not find them cute. I find them disgusting and vicious.
Anyway, this is life in the suburbs. Most people are not aware of the amount of wildlife we are all harboring in the woods around our houses. We have more groundhogs than the rest of you, but some of you have groundhogs living under your porches. I understand that they all need a place to live, but there is no real reason for me to want to be the provider for all these scavenging opportunists. They should not feast on domestic vegetables, they should eat worms and berries and acorns as they are designed to do. Mr. McGregor was totally right to be mad at Peter Rabbit.
As I was idly looking out the window at the new day, I saw a young squirrel diligently trying to collect just the right sized twig from the branch it was sitting on. It sat on its back legs, chewed the twig to the right length, using both hands to stabilize the wood and then started to carry it up the tree. Somehow it dropped the twig. Damn. Went back to find another one. This time the squirrel chose a shorter piece and went quickly back up the tree. And then it jumped out of my sight. But that's when I knew this squirrel was up to no good, from my point of view.
I went upstairs to our bedroom to look out the window, to verify my suspicions. I confirmed that the squirrel was jumping onto the highest part of our roof, and therefore was undoubtedly building a nest on the roof, underneath the solar panels. That damned squirrel is trying to burn the house down. Our neighbors actually had a fire on their roof that started with squirrels chewing on wires. Up until recently our house has been taller than the trees, but now the trees are creating convenient access to the roof.
This can be addressed, and we will make our house inaccessible to those rats with furry tails. Squirrels are quite low on my list of cute creatures in nature. In the fall they methodically eat holes in pumpkins, squash, eat the kernels off decorative corn, and leave a mess wherever they go. These vegetables have already been picked and hauled and stored, the squirrels are not finding their food in the wild. They are taking from a pile that is not theirs.
If I were a true nature lover, I would have a perspective that included the needs of the squirrels. And deer and geese and mice and voles. I do not love any of them.
But all of those critters have much in common. They are opportunists who find a place to live and eat that is as comfortable and easy as possible. Because we farm in the deep suburbs, we get to interact with all of them. The more you watch them and see how they settle in, the more you appreciate how they just do not care one bit about the human perspective. We are on our own.
Squirrels and mice have nothing better to do than to chew a hole in a building that is constructed to exclude them. They have all day and all night. They will stop chewing for a moment if you happen to be nearby but they will get right back to work as soon as you get out of the way. We consider it a major victory if we can plug the holes as fast as they make them so we can successfully hoard a winter's worth of sweet potatoes in a room that is heated to 60 degrees. You can understand why a mouse would be so focused on getting into that room for the winter.
I went to a class about "coddling" goose eggs about ten years ago. What I learned was that I don't really want to get into the business of coating goose eggs with peanut oil, especially not if it means I have to chase the mama goose off the nest with an umbrella. Instead what I learned is that the goal is to keep geese from ever building a nest on our property. If that happens, we will be the home base for generations to come. So I have dedicated myself to chasing geese off the fields every single time I see them, even back when I was coming home from yoga, soaking wet -- I would drive to the gate and walk through the snow in my barefeet inside of crocs, waving my arms and yelling so the flock of 24 rats with wings would get off the field. This winter when I was stuck on the couch for a month, I delegated that task to Michael L who was extremely diligent about making sure no geese took up residence in our best vegetable field. This practice is so ingrained in our winter/spring lives that our farm 3 year old knows just what to do: the other day her mother and I were weeding spinach while the 3 year old and the 9 month old entertained themselves next to us. Two geese came in for a landing. We waved our arms and they went back up, but then they decided to come in a little further away from us. Those scumbags. We told Zoey to go chase them. She got up from the spinach patch and took off on her skinny little legs, waving her arms and yelling at the geese (never stopping to consider that they were just about the same size as she is). She had to get pretty close before they took off, but they did leave. Zoey wins.
Killing things is hard and yucky. We don't kill many animals, we just try to discourage them or get them to move on, or we build barricades. I spend a ridiculous amount of time -- mostly for my own entertainment -- filling up groundhog holes with really disgusting compost. I have learned that they really don't like that. They are rather fastidious creatures. Rotten tomatoes in your entryway is just gross. I did put a used chicken carcass down into a groundhog hole last year, but I knew that was going to bring in the foxes, and it did. We don't mind foxes so much because they don't eat vegetables. They do eat rabbits and mice, and we approve of that. But they also love to poop on bales of hay, and that is not a nice habit.
Actual rats we do kill. They cannot be tolerated. There is nothing, not one single thing, that makes a rat okay. We poison them, we trap them, we fill their holes with gravel. If you kill a lot at once, then they are gone for a long time. In general, we don't have rats except at the very beginning of the season when they have had a long time to get comfortable in and around the greenhouse. They are just about the most horrifying vermin that exist.
Well, raccoons are pretty close. They are beyond amoral -- they enjoy killing as a game. They are like humans gone awry. This is a very old story, but there was a time when I went to the chicken house to feed the hens and found a scene of carnage, with headless chickens, blood spattered everywhere. I filled a wheelbarrow with mangled, dead chickens. I don't love chickens but it was heartbreaking to think about the night those ladies endured, with a raccoon or multiple raccoons rampaging around killing for the fun of it. I will never forgive any raccoons for that and I do not find them cute. I find them disgusting and vicious.
Anyway, this is life in the suburbs. Most people are not aware of the amount of wildlife we are all harboring in the woods around our houses. We have more groundhogs than the rest of you, but some of you have groundhogs living under your porches. I understand that they all need a place to live, but there is no real reason for me to want to be the provider for all these scavenging opportunists. They should not feast on domestic vegetables, they should eat worms and berries and acorns as they are designed to do. Mr. McGregor was totally right to be mad at Peter Rabbit.
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