welcome to the jungle

After telling the story of the cute little humming bird and her nest last night, tonight I decided to tell you a story about the more prominent animal that lives in my parents yard.
Since their home is located on the banks of Little Cottonwood Creek, they get all sorts of wildlife. In years past raccoons have made a home under their deck, and have even come inside the house, through the dog door, to snack on some Eukanuba from the doggie dish. There have been deer just hanging out on the driveway, fox running across the street in the wee hours of the morning, and lately coyote attacking (and eating) other kitties and doggies in the neighborhood. (Don't worry I've had a long talk with Lucy, and she no longer goes over to that side of the circle--where the coyotes have been spotted, plus....the male of the group was just trapped and killed yesterday...hopefully we won't get anymore, they are mean old things.) So, back to the most prominent animal in my parents yard....rats. A couple weeks ago my Mom was out working in the yard and a "gigantic rat" went moseying across the driveway, just taking it's pretty time to get from one place to the next as my Mom sat there and watched in shear terror. Well, all hell broke loose and one hour later there were rat traps displayed throughout the entire yard, all over the sidewalks, and across the porch. D-con has been scattered on every square inch of the property and I'm surprised they haven't sent up a surveillance camera to watch every movement in the yard. No matter what my Mom is talking about, within 5 minutes the rats have surfaced into the conversation with explanation of how big and how many they have caught. Tonight at Ikea, Cody and I saw this cute little rat stuffed animal and had to buy it for my Mom. When we got home we planted it next to her gardening bucket. When she came over to pick it up she spotted this cute little rat and nearly bust into tears and almost suffered a heart attack. Needless to say she didn't think it was too funny or too cute, and has already given the stuffed animal to Lucy and tried to teach her how to "catch rats". Lucy's more likely to share her bed with them than to hunt them.

So far they've killed 6.