This morning I’m just sort of hanging around, waiting for the afternoon when I’m going to town with D&L. Earlier I saw a chipmunk scampering around the juniper just outside the Lair’s door and I thought, “That’s unusually stupid even for a chipmunk.” But Ghost is off visiting Landlady and LB was inside, so it got away with it.
Tired of puttering around the yard, I put LB on his long lead and we went for a little walk. I just got home and was futzing with the ‘pooter when I heard a strange noise, as of something thrashing against hollow wood. Stopped and listened, and heard it again.
Went outside, stopped, listened. Heard it again. Louder. From the powershed. Sounded big.
You’d have laughed to see old gray Uncle Joel slicing the pie at the powershed’s open door, gun drawn. I didn’t really want to start firing my .44 into the shed, where rest my food, water, ammo, kerosene, tools, batteries, inverter…But I would if it was something mean.
Alas, it was not anything mean. I reset that rat trap in the shed after killing yesterday’s packrat, never intending to catch a harmless chipmunk. But it must have come to investigate the peanut butter.
It wasn’t dead, but it was going fast. Letting it out of the trap did no good, and it died right there. Guess I’ll call it rodent collateral damage and award myself a medal for moral courage or something.
They try to fool you with their funny antics, but squirrels and chipmunks are no more than rats with furry tails.
We hillbillies call ’em “tree rats” for that reason. Of course, it doesn’t stop us from eating them.
I’d eat a rat, if it came to that; fortunately it hasn’t (yet [knocks wood]).