Weird To Do With Rats .....

Now that I appear able to function, on line, again ..... Some nights ago, I was just giving the Dogs a last break and I couldn't help but notice how they all became gathered and preoccupied, over on the grass.

That's to say, they usually just content themselves with a piss on the gravel. But, this night they were all mingling about, in the dark, over by the back side of the cottage. Not that I read too much into it. Just sort of struck me that this wasn't their usual routine.

Another little 'Back of the Minder' is the hole, up by my post box. You wouldn't know it was there. I do. I know because I found Pat with his arm down it one day. Doing something with a spanner. There's something to do with water pipes, in there. Governing one of Pat's cattle troughs, I imagine. Doesn't concern me. Been concerning the Dogs of late though.

For a few days past now, on our daily wander up there, all the Dogs have been 'Marking' that pipe hole. There's a rock on top of it. And the pipe inside comes under the road, from the ditch opposite. So does some rather foul smelling water. But, it's never attracted my Dogs before. I'm thinking Mink.

Fact that, a couple of days ago, le Ding went under the fence at the hedge below this hole. Had a sniff around and said; " Look, Dad! Shit! ". And so there was. It looked a lot like mink shit too. Frankly, a bit too damn fresh for me to want to go touching it and sniffing it! I had other things to get on with anyway.

And, perhaps that was the night the Dogs behaved funny. Messing around on the far side of the grass. Towards my ditch?

What ever. Next day, out we all came. I was heading for my ditch and, as always, scanning the ground for land mines, laid by the Dogs as I got the kettle on. That's how I found the rat. Good, full grown one. It was stretched out on the grass in such a way that it had obviously died whilst running flat out. Most unusual.

It had been running from my little wood bunker too. I knew they were back in there ~ Dogs had told me that too. Simply too rushed off my feet to bother just yet. And, right then, I had other things on my mind too. I slung the rat into my compost box, as I passed by into my ditch.

Minutes later, more relaxed, I re emerged and walked back the way I'd come. And there's this fucking rat again! I turned round to Nigger and asked him how in hell he'd managed to get into my compost box. Never mind. I slung the damn thing back in there. Right on top of the Other One!

This was getting 'noticeable'. I was pondering all this as I went to the kitchen sink. And that's when my morning fresh, pre fag nose picked up that old, familiar scent again! Oh, for fuck sake ~ Not Again?!

I very gingerly eased the drawer open and peeked in. Lifted the papers ..... Nuffn! Thank fuck for that then! So, what was going on here? Then I remembered the trap. I'd long since set a rat trap in the cupboard under the sink. I'd seen how rats had got in there, using my wood bunker for cover. Dear god ..... I slid the door open.

Bingo!

And that's how I came to find I had Three dead rats in my compost box that morning.

Hat Trick!

The only thing still bugging me now is; It seems as though one or other of the Dogs likely caught and killed the two outside. Orange Dog is certainly more than capable, and she has quite the obsession with rodents too.

Perhaps le Ding scored one? I've never known him show much interest in rats before. But, given one streaking past him in the middle of the night? How could he refuse?!

But, here's the kicker; What the fuck were Two, fully grown and perfectly fit, rats doing, running the gauntlet of three Dogs like that?! What ever possessed them to break out of my wood bunker, simultaneously, and make a blind dash across open ground full of Dogs?

Can't help thinking about that mink. Less than two hundred yards away, moving among all these inter connected ditches .....