‘Blood rain’ anyone?
It’s the Sahara sand again. That’s what they call it – blood rain. I don’t know if that means it gets picked up in the rain and falls in red or it just leaves red dust everywhere.
If you find the map disorienting in black and white, that’s the UK at the top and Africa below and the dark stuff is the dust headed our way. Gosh, we aren’t all that far from Africa!
That makes Beachy Head lady more plausible.
Meanwhile, back at Badger House, we’ve been rat hunting. Specifically, dead rat hunting. It’s the sort of quarry you more than half hope you don’t find.
The smell got so appalling that Uncle B, with his keen sense of smell, thought he could pinpoint the location of our hidden stinker: the back of the fridge. And he was right. Ratty had crawled up into the mechanism for comfort, poor beast. Another big boy. Oh, it was vile.
Poison is an ugly weapon. I hate using it, but I’m scared of traps big enough to deal with these big rats.
I don’t suppose we’ve got them all yet, but it’s gone mighty quiet in the kitchen.
Posted: May 18th, 2022 under weather.
Comments: 5
Comments
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: May 18, 2022, 9:07 pm
Although is sounds a thoroughly unpleasant cleanup, the stench was very temporary and the absence of rats will, it is to be hoped, be rather longer lasting.
It’s too bad that rats lack sufficient intelligence to be cowed (!) by the sight of their brethren’s corpses hanging from little gibbets erected around the boundaries of your curtilage.
Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: May 19, 2022, 6:02 am
Rats usually infest in packs – a family or two, with Daddies (bigguns), Mommas (large), juniors, and maybe some pups. Just stay vigilant and leave the poison out for a while after you think they are all gone, or else you’ll be overrun again.
I ran a factory in Cavite that was infested with rats, and when they chewed through the internet cable, I went to war. But I didn’t use poison just for the reason you are seeing now – I didn’t want dead ratas stinking up the joint or doing damage to equipment or inventory. I had two live traps that I would bait with peanut butter. Catch ’em, drown ’em, put the corpses in the nearby field for the feral cats to devour. I think I sent about 50 of the buggers to their ratty heaven over the course of my tenure.
Good luck!
Comment from Tim Carlson
Time: May 19, 2022, 6:04 am
You really should consider live traps. Safe for the cats, and no poison spread all over your house. Just have a large bucket of water available that you can throw it into when you catch one.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 19, 2022, 1:50 pm
I don’t think I could drown a rat, Tim. Poison is arguably a worse death, I know, but at least the deed is done where I don’t have to see it.
I could shoot one, though.
Comment from OldFert
Time: May 19, 2022, 2:08 pm
When I was a kid Fertmom would sometimes get mouse/rat poison. She said it would make the critters thirsty and they’d go outside to find water and die outside.
As for sandstorms, while in Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield/Storm/whatever, we were heading up Trans Arabian Pipeline (TAPline) Road, a sandstorm came up, and then it started to rain. We were driving in a mudstorm. It was orange.
Not bad enough to stop, but an interesting experience.
Write a comment
Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.<< carry me back to ol' virginny