Just Got My Nuts Out .....

  Lovely, sunny day here today, in Leitrim. Pesticle's been sitting outside the window. Catching some welcome first rays. Evil Little Dog's god knows where; Doing no harm. All's good. Dogs doing their things as I did mine.

Had a fucking rat, lately. Getting on my peanut basket, day and night. Pain in the arse. I don't pay for peanuts to feed fucking rats! Started taking them in, at night. Then, as I tried catch some birds in the day? I was looking out there to find this bastard all over my nuts again!

  Well, fuck that. I know where they live. I took them a little something. Few days ago. Went Kenyan on them.

  So, anyway; Here I am. Doors open. Dogs all wandering about, doing their things. I got a scuttle of fuel in and fed the stove enough to keep it ticking over. le Ding wandered in and sat watching me.

  Decided to empty the stoves ash tray. Explaining all this to Dingo Dog as he sat close by. " There we go, Ding Ding, mate. Dad keeps it going, look. It'll get cold enough again, once that sun goes down. "

  Ding took in my every word. Even as I started picking up odd bits of dusty cardboard off the floor around me where I knelt. I've learned to put opened out cardboard boxes on the floor in here. Amazingly warm under bare feet. The Dogs like to lay on it too.

  Just gathered up a handful of the stuff le Ding and Pesticle had shredded, in times of madness. Told Ding I'd just put these in the rubbish burning stove, in the kitchen. 

  Heaved myself up, off my knees. Absently telling le Ding what a good Dog he was. Just because he is. And I like to tell him. He likes to hear it.

  Turned round, a contented soul. And, yes; I rather loudly screamed an invocation of the name of the all mighty! Who wouldn't? One step toward the door and I'd have trod on what Dingo Dog had brought to show me:

  For fuck sake! 

  Yes, Ding Ding. You're a Very good Dog. Helping look after Dads nuts for him. Only, for fuck sake; Ye might have fucking said something?

Hark! Hark! The Dogs Do Bark .....

  At least " Rats " did. Last night. I was just sitting here, listening to my tinnitus and cruising a forum when she lit up. Out of fucking no where. Barking like a lunatic.

 Of course, all I'm getting is this scruffy little 'Lakeland Terrier' thing, going ballistic. No other sounds. Rest of the Dogs ignoring her. No headlights on the window. No reaching for the gun. Just " Shuuuuuud Uuuuuuuuupp!!! Fucking Thing! Woss Up Wi Ye?! ".

 And all returned to normal. Moment passed. Incident forgotten. For hours. Certainly until I decided it was time I let them all out for a piss, before the final run down to bed time. And then? Fuck me if she didn't kick off all over again!

 Rats, going hysterical once? I can live with that. Rats doing it twice? I look to her .....

 In fact, I looked to the scene behind the door there. Ye know how someone could move a tea mug, an inch, in ye kitchen ..... and ye'd walk in and 'see' that something was amiss in ye room? It's like that when ye live alone, anyway.

 And I soon spotted it. The 'mess' by the Store Room door. Some sort of stuff on what should have been a clean swept floor. I looked closer .....

  Kind of sticks out like a punch in the mouth, doesn't it? It certainly would do, if ye knew how clean swept I like to keep my floors here, anyway. And not without good reason.

 So, Rats is all over the place and I've given them their piss, then brought them all back in here, before I investigated further.

  Look at the state of my fucking door frame!

  Fucking rat has come up in the earth floored room, out the back. It's slipped under the door, where I'm working and am replacing the door step. That's got it into my kitchen ~ no doubt setting Rats off in the first place.

 Me having called her off? The damn thing's decided all is well in the world and has sat down to work, at its leisure, on the door post of my Pest Control Store Room! And, by the time I've gone out there? It's broken through and was, I figured, in the fucking store!

 Picked the wrong kiddy to invade, this fucker! LOL! I've 'Dusted' the hole. Moment he passes back through there? He'll pick up an annoying slick of powder on his coat. Rats are actually fastidiously fussy about their grooming. He'll lick that off.

 I set a trap, just in case he was stupid, or licking that super concentrated poison dust makes him so while he's still able to move.

 Then, I put down a tray of the best gear I have. Pellets. Very tempting. Very lethal. Then I went to bed.

 Tonight? I let the Dogs out for their piss. Rats was having none of it. All she wanted was to check the door post hole. Then dash along the fireplace wall to the cupboard.

 What a thing of beauty, to see her work! That little Dog was completely focused and knew exactly what she was getting at too. She flattened herself out and got beneath a drawer I'd have a hard job rolling a been tin under!

 Shining my Clulite under there, I thought of grabbing the camera and getting a photo of her. But, instincts of my own kicked in. I slid that shallow drawer open .....

 Bingo! There, in the corner. Nice little pile of red pellets. The fucker's been hoarding the bait. Carrying each, individual pellet from the tray. Through the door post. Through my kitchen. Up under the cupboard. Into that drawer. Bastard!

 A life times experience as a rat catcher told me to open that drawer. But, it was my trustee little scruffy scrap of a terrier that led me to the drawer in the first place. 

 Without her help? I'd not have known to put a fresh dose of that lethal dust in that perfectly safe drawer. I even know where to retrieve my bait from. And I know that it too is somewhere safe. 

 Rat'll be helping itself to a few pellets, of course. It'll also be ingesting ever more of that dust. Probably be dead tomorrow then. And I know exactly where to look for it.

 If I can't find it, where I'm expecting it? Rats'll soon sniff it out for me. That's what she does best.

  

This Is Rank As Fuck!!!

Ohhh, jesus fucking wept! I've hardly been on line an hour and I come up with Just the sort of thing I want to talk about ~ THIS is the sort of shit that I can only imagine makes me of such interest to others? Shit that just seems to Happen to me! Here's the craic .....

For a few days now I've been aware of a whiff in my kitchen. I mean, we're talking Bad here. Has to be, doesn't it? Like that time I left some steamed Brussel Sprouts in my cupboard ..... for about a month! Remember that one? Well; This beats the shit out of it! This is fucking Harsh!

So, I've got this smell. It's emanating from my sink. Yeah? Now, being an old, isolated Irish farmstead, I have no plumbing to speak of. This sink has only a single, cold tap. And that tap drains into some sort of soak away ~ I guess. Figured there must be something down there got a bit bacterial. No problemmo. I slung some disinfectant down the plug hole a night or two back.

Maybe it's me? But, I wasn't so aware of the stink by today. What I was aware of was the fact that my Land Line phone is due to have been connected by tomorrow. Thus, in anticipation, I'd rung myself on my mobile the other day. Got an engaged tone sound. Today I got the ringing sound. But no phone ringing.

See, I have this weird little phone I brought with me. I've plugged it into the phone socket and have charged it up. It's sat out there, in the kitchen. Won't ring though. So I reckon there's something (Oh, this fucking stink is doing my head in here! No Way can I eat my dinner with This!) I reckon there's some button I've not hit. But which button?

Now, I'm a fucker for Manuals. I always read them. Then I keep them. I've been actively looking out for an A4 sized box file. Somewhere I can store all my stacks of manuals for things I have here. Haven't found one yet. But I thought maybe I could find the phones manual somewhere about this cottage.

Like most of us blokes then, I have a vague idea where I put things. I know I keep some manuals in the 'cutlery' draw of my sink unit. Uh huh. Sink stink? Now we're getting to talk about the drawer in the sink unit? You wait!

Sooooo ..... I pop open the drawer. I look down at the usual contents. Stack of manuals. Some bunches of Dog fur (I can explain that! I brush my Dogs out and stick the fur in the drawer. I save it up, through winter, to put out for the birds. They take it for nesting material. Still got some in there) And the usual crap one puts in ones 'Kitchen Drawer' down the years. Ball of string. Pair of brass hinges. Ye know the sort of shit.

Only, I don't quite remember this brown fur. In fact, it reminded me of young robins feathers. I couldn't quite get a make on it and my mind sort of went into over ride. Alarm bells were ringing. I somehow found myself heading straight out the door with this drawer in my hands.

Then I saw the fucking Maggots! And the wet, leathery, black skin! Ah, jesus! Oh my fucking christ! It was a Dead Fucking Rat!!!

No shit! I've got this well rotted down, maggot crawling fucking rat, right there in my own kitchen draw! Fuck knows how he got in there. Obviously took the bait I regularly put down around here ~ but outside, for chrissake! I can only imagine this bastard came in somewhere round where the waste pipe goes out. I'll have to check tomorrow.

Right now I'm calling a cab; See if there's anywhere I can eat out tonight. No fucking way can I stomach eating in here. The rat's long gone, but this stench is still burning my nostrils!

This is the actual shot I originally took with my new phone!
This was in my fucking drawer!