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

Fecund Eptitude

Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

A couple days ago Aoibheall woke up and found half a rat on the rug in front of the bathroom. Fox has discovered that rats are made out of meat. She left the head, shoulders, three feet and the tail; I assume that was because those are the bony bits, but maybe she wasn't all that hungry or maybe she just wanted to leave us something so we could be proud of her. From what was left, I'd guess the rat was maybe three inches long.

Saturday morning, there was a little mole in our closet (no doubt courtesy of Fox). I set the dogs loose and they caught it and took it outside. They didn't eat it, but did kill it. Esme spent a lot of time licking it. Gross.

The black and white rat escapee caught herself in the trap Saturday evening. It was too late to hold another rat derby, so we decided to hold it after Mother's Day brunch. Unfortunately, the Badb has not yet had field hockey in P.E. (I think they wait until fifth grade for that) and so the rat got by her and escaped into the blackberry bramble.

This morning there was another wood rat in the trap. A bit smaller than the last one, but still a sizable four to five inches, not counting the tail. This evening Peaches, the Badb and I took the dogs out on the driveway in front of the garage for another installment of rat chasing school. This time, Esme actually had the rat in her mouth, but put it down. Dagmar was completely amped, but not quite quick enough in following. After the rat escaped into the wood pile, she kept nosing around and acting very excited. She wanted that rat.

Later this evening, Aoibheall and I were sitting at the table doing some paperwork and we heard Fox scrambling around behind the TV. Last night, it had been Oswald getting himself stuck back there, so I didn't pay much attention. But then Dagmar started whining and I noticed Fox just sitting in front of the old toy chest, keeping an eye on it. I let the dogs out of their crates. Esme went straight for the plush bed with a chew toy, but Dagmar started sniffing around the chest, getting very excited all over again.

I pulled the chest away from the wall (hardwood floors and felt feet on all the furniture certainly makes this sort of excitement easier to manage) and a little rat went scurrying along the baseboard, diving to sanctuary under the short bookcase by the Nuu-Nuu.

I moved some more stuff, pulled the bookcase out from the wall, and eventually coerced the rat out from under with a stick. Dagmar, Oswald, and Fox were all very interested in the proceedings. When the rat went running, Dagmar was after it in hot pursuit. She caught it and gave it the patented terrier rat shake. Score for Dagmar! Esme then darted in and swiped the rat, prancing around the room while holding the carcass by the head. I gave both dogs lots of treats. It took a lot of treats to be a fair trade for the rat.

Oswald was put out by all this. He'd started swearing at the others in the midst of the flushing of the game and run off outside. Just as I finished putting things back where they belonged, including dogs back in crates, I noticed him crouched under the table playing with something. "What's he got?" I asked.

"A bug," said Aoibheall.

Well, almost. It was a bat. So then we had to try to get the bat out of the house, since he let the bat go (we wanted him to, after all) and it started flying around in circles. Aoibheall opened the sliding glass door but the bat seemed oblivious. She opened the front door and the bat just flew past it, circling around and around the ceiling fan (which was off), but being joined by a moth from outside which was almost as big as the bat. I got a broom and tried to urge the bat to fly toward the open doors, but I can't take any credit for the bat's eventual escape. I think it was just luck. Aoibheall: "Bats are really inefficient."

I smacked the moth with the broom.

Vermin: 7
Dogs: 5
Cats: 3 (Oswald *would* have done the bat if we'd let him)

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.

Summer in Spring

We got sick last week. Two weeks ago we scrambled the house around, moving everyone's beds so that now we have an office for Aoibheall to work in. The Badb had what seemed like a head cold, so she had light duty. The rest of us shifted heavy beds and furniture. By Monday, all the furniture was where it was supposed to be although the books are not all back on shelves. But I had the cold.

It turned out the cold wasn't just a cold. Apparently there's a nasty stomach flu going around up here. I got it. All week, I felt miserable. Tired, woozy, and my sinuses were everflowing. By the weekend, I was mostly recovered, but Aoibheall had picked it up. She was lagging by a couple of days, and spent all Saturday incapacitated. Our original plan had been for my parents and nephew to come up and visit that weekend and maybe get their help in redecorating the girls' bedroom. Instead, we urged them not to visit and share our cold.

On Thursday morning, Aoibheall said to me that she thought the young chickens were big enough to move out to the big chicken house. They're only a month and a half old, but they are fully fledged. I figured that was fair, so when I got home from work I started moving them out of the garage. They've been in the big house since then, and they're getting used to it. This evening, they even meekly walked back into the house from the yard when I brandished the New Blue Broom of Justice (the pipsqueaks had no respect at all when they were living in the garage).

Yesterday, we were all recovered. This was a good thing, as we'd scheduled a visit to the Exploratorium. Badb had said that what she wanted for her birthday party was to go to the Tactile Dome with a couple of friends, but scheduling had been tough. Yesterday was when our schedule and her friends' had opened up.

One friend was going to meet up with us at the Exploratorium and we picked up the other first thing in the morning. We then drove down into Santa Cruz because Aoibheall and I are taking Tai chi on Saturdays. The class meets in a park with some pretty cool play structures (including some awesome looking slides). The girls played in the park while we learned how to stand and twist. That accomplished, we all piled into the car and started driving north.

We picked up some fruit and lunch stuff at a Whole Foods on the way. We made it to the Exploratorium in plenty of time - we had half an hour to wander around before our 1:45 appointment in the Tactile Dome. We ended up with four adults, one teenager, and four little kids. Unlike last summer when we went to the Exploratorium for Camp Guel Guaynat, we felt little pressure to keep track of everyone. Our ratios were better and everyone had a wonderful time. At closing time we all went out to get a lovely dinner at Pluto's. Everyone was well-fed, although we were all pretty tired from a long day of doing things.

The weather was fabulous. It was warm and sunny, even in San Francisco. We are so suggestible. We came home and made mojitos and watched SpongeBob Squarepants episodes with the kids. (The choice of video was influenced by the zither music from The Third Man - almost at the end of watching that movie, Aoibheall said, "I know why we know that music - it's the same as the background music for SpongeBob!")

The weather was warm and clear again today. I'm back to my spring haircut (I'm sure my Uncle Chuck approves) and Aoibheall cleaned it up this morning. Then we had a big breakfast and got ready to tackle all our piled up chores. The girls needed haircuts and we had the grocery shopping to do. While I was doing the groceries, the girls were getting haircuts and Aoibheall walked through the Cost Plus next to the SuperCuts. We decided that with the beautiful weather we were going to have dinner outside. Well, to do that right we needed a few things. Our patio furniture is plastic and is on the verge of collapse. Cost Plus had some swell chairs and some enamelware that we decided would be perfect for outdoors. We had sangria, limeade, and tostadas out on the deck.

When I took out the compost after dinner, I saw that we'd trapped a rat. Hurrah! Another opportunity for Dagmar and Esme to show their valor! Aoibheall and I set up on the deck with brooms and we brought out the dogs. Dagmar was intensely interested in the rat, who set to squealing as soon as the dogs appeared. Esme decided that she, too, was intensely interested but wanted to be interested from about 15 feet away. Deep defense, I guess. Aoibheall used her broom to open the trap and the rat came scurrying out. It dashed across the deck with Dagmar in pursuit, but our doggie is still not the killer we've been hoping for. The rat got away and fled up the hillside.

Vermin: 3
Dogs: 3

Oh, and speaking of vermin, Oswald has been getting better at hunting. Unfortunately, he's upgraded from moths to bats. I appreciate his enterprise and want to encourage his Hemingway spirit, but I do wish he'd pick on critters that I'd be happier without. We've got plenty of bugs; I like the bats. If only he'd cooperate with the dogs and do something about these rats.

Training Vermin

The more charitable of our readers will probably say that Fox has decided to train up these dogs. The more cynical would say that it's just That Time of Year, when strapping young Vermin set off into the wet, green woods to seek their fortune and find, instead, a moderately disgusting housecat.

Tonight, Fox set a mole loose in our bedroom. I saw her sitting in front of my dresser and I figured she was still hunting last night's mouse when, Oh! I spied a mole.

I went and fetched Dagmar.

Fox kept track of the mole, more or less, and I served as beater, driving the mole toward open space or at least out of whatever remote cranny it dove into. (Have you counted the remote crannies in your bedroom, lately?) A few minutes into the pursuit I heard, from the other side of the wooden screen toward which I'd been chivvying the mole, the tell-tale sound of dog tags shaking vigorously and the thwap-thwap-thwap of Dagmar's ears (and probably the mole) slapping around.

Despite big praise and treats and the opportunity to brag to Esme, Dagmar did not want to drop the mole. Eventually I forced it out of her mouth and gave her more treats.

So, versus small critters the size of a film canister, Dagmar is death on four legs. I've reset the rat trap; I'm very curious about how the next big critter will fare.

Vermin: 2
Dogs: 3

She Shoots, She SCORES!

So there I was, minding my own business, putting away clean laundry and Fox is staring at a spot underneath my dresser. The last time this happened, it was nothing - she'd been chasing dust bunnies or ghosts or something. But this time, instead of looking up at me guiltily and skulking off, she went back to paying rapt attention to the space beneath my dresser. I went and fetched a flashlight.

There was a mouse under my dresser. Huge ears, long tail, tiny little body. With the aid of the flashlight, Fox was able to zero in on the critter, chasing it off to a corner behind a bookcase. I'd never be able to move all the stuff off the bookcase and move the bookcase to get at the mouse. Luckily, we have a long unwound wire coathanger. Aoibheall is always saying how a Mexican can get anything done with a coathanger. I pretended to be Mexican and poked at the mouse, trying to get it to come back over under the dresser, which is an easer space to get at.

Instead, the mouse leapt up onto the bottom shelf, on top of some printer paper. It looked at me. Fox, two inches away from it, stared at it and sniffed. "Well, get it!" I urged. Fox did nothing. The mouse ducked back under the bookcase. Oswald came in to see what we were up to. He saw the mouse, saw Fox, saw me, and then wandered off. "Useless creatures!" I said.

Back to the wire. I did get the mouse to come back to the dresser. Fox shot after it, and then turned back to the bookcase. I looked around. There was no mouse under the dresser...oh wait, ew, there was a dead one that looked like it'd been mauled. But the living and leaping one was nowhere to be seen. Not under the dresser and not under the bookcase. I looked into the bathroom and turned on the light. There, on the tiles in front of the vanity, was the mouse. It darted behind the toilet.

This is a much better (or worse, for the mouse) arena. There are few crevices into which the mouse could hide, and all of them are accessible to the determined housecat. If only we had a determined housecat. Fox was not interested in pinning down the mouse in the bathroom.

I came out to the kitchen and asked Aoibheall if she thought I should just kill the critter or if I should give the doggies a chance. I was a little doubtful, but I figured I could get the mouse into the bathtub and close the shower doors and it'd be a tidy little arena. Aoibheall agreed. I went back into the bathroom and Fox had cornered the mouse in my shower caddy.

I opened the shower doors and Fox bolted -- I suppose she feared a bath. I fished some bath toys out of the tub and closed the stopper. Then I came back out to get the dogs. "Wake up doggies! Who wants to play? Huh? Come on, let's go get a critter! Who're my badass bitches?" A bit of stretching and they had their game faces on.

I carried them in to the bathroom, opened the shower door, and put the dogs in. Esme seemed more interested in the fact that she was on the other side of a glass wall from me, but Dagmar went straight for the mouse. She sniffed at it, it scurried a little, so she jumped on it, bit it, and went into the whole terrier shake-the-rat routine. Lots of praise. "Oh yes! Good girl Dagmar! Yes!" Esme looked at the mouse, looked at me, and put her paws up on the doors. Clearly, she had no interest in this critter.

Dagmar did her duty and killed the mouse. Those stuffed toy rats from IKEA seem to have been a great training aid. Time to get more of those, man!

Vermin: 2
Dogs: 2