Banner Weekend

It's been a busy weekend for all of us. Aoibheall's parents were in town to help celebrate her birthday, we worked a booth at the Boulder Creek Art & Wine Festival, and the cats and dogs have gotten to work on the vermin.

The festival was fun; smiling and being nice to people was great. The best part for me was that since I was volunteering it was easy to laugh off any stress - what were they gonna do, dock my pay?

We went for a lovely walk in the open space preserve off Skyline on Sunday. It was a bit chilly, but what a great time. We saw lots of poison oak, a really big lizard, a bird head, flowers...it was great. At the nature information station there was a big placard showing all the different animals one might see in the area. One of these was the deer mouse. Looking closely at that picture and description, I decided that those creatures the cats have been catching weren't juvenile wood rats, they were adult deer mice.

We all came back home to wash up and then take Aoibheall out to a fabulous dinner at La Bruschetta in Felton. Seriously: I think that's the best dinner to be had in this valley.

On Monday we saw Son of Rambow. That was hilarious, and very well-made. Even the Badb thought it was great.

So, critters:

• We caught a rat in the trap. It was too late for coursing so we kept it in the garage overnight. The next morning, before breakfast, it was dead. No coursing for the doggies. Score 1 for the humans, I guess.
• That same night, though, Fox had caught and partially eviscerated a deer mouse, leaving the corpse and entrails at the bottom of the stairs. Score one for the cats.
• On Monday I saw two deer mice lurking behind the compost bin. I brought the dogs over; Esme didn't seem interested at all, but Dagmar was chasing around, trying to get behind the bin. I shoved at the bin and moved it away from the house a little, but I think I caved in some tunnels. One of the mice was stuck inside the bin, so I put Dagmar in and she had a bit more enthusiasm for the cage match. Score one for Dagmar Verminbane.
• Monday night as I was putting away the chickens, I saw there was a mouse in the trap. Deer mice are big enough to trip the lever on the rat trap! Quickly I fetched down Peaches and the dogs and we set the mouse loose in the driveway. Dagmar ran it to ground and then Esme darted in and snatched the mouse away from her. Esme gets the kill, Dagmar on the assist.
• This morning Fox had a mouse cornered in the living room. She and Oswald had fun chasing it around and then down the stairs. I let the dogs back in from their wake-up potty break and they went to town. The situation was complicated by so many agents, but the Badb came in to tell me during my shower that Dagmar the Rat Killer had triumphed.

Score:
Vermin: 7
Dogs: 8
Cats: 4
Humans: 2

The House of Inept Animals

Dagmar and Esme have killed moles. They've not managed to demonstrate digging for anything except cat poop, though, and they've not caught any rats.

We went to the store and bought a pair of live rats. We wanted to go coursing with our dogs. We set up on the driveway, in front of the closed garage door. Three of us standing around with brooms and poles to poke the freed rat back into the middle, and the two dogs sitting there looking expectant.

The first rat got away anyhow, making a quick break for the hillside and getting clean away into the shrubbery.

The second rat didn't get away. But the dogs didn't kill it, either. They'd go after it when it ran, pick it up in soft mouths as if carrying a puppy, and bring it back to the center. They just wouldn't bite it. Eventually I took pity on the rat and gave it grace with a hatchet. The whole scene reminded me of Rollerball and I felt horrible for a week.

Last weekend some of Aoibheall's family came out and, as I was cleaning up in the office preparatory to setting up beds for people, I found a stiff, cold, dead rat. Adult, with a pretty clear bite mark near its shoulders. So, one of the cats has upgraded from juvenile rats to adults. That's good news, eh?

Last night I saw the escaped rat (white with a dark gray blaze on its head and shoulders) dash out from underneath the coop when I went down to put the chickens away. So, the escapee is getting on with the locals. Maybe soon we'll start seeing tamer wood rats? I set the trap under the coop.

Tonight there was a rat in the trap. Regular adult female wood rat, not the escapee. I got the cage ready, figuring we'd stage some kind of training session with the dogs tomorrow. The rat got away as I was trying to transfer it into the cage. Garr!

Vermin: 5
Dogs: 3
Cats: 1
Humans: 1

The vermin are still winning. I'm embarrassed.