RATHELL

8.24.22  

The Wood Rats are unrelenting.  Weird little people, they chew into tubes of vaseline, olive oil, bottles of silicone 3-in-1 oil, home covid test kit fluid, they secret away dirty sponges, strips chewn off an empty milk bottle, baseballs, tennis balls for nesting, a rubber ducky, a massage ball—chewed all the points off looking for a way in.  They chew holes in anything they think will have a viscous fluid inside, chew all the way around a plastic jar lid hoping to get it open.  I don’t know what the attraction is.  Alternatively there are some rats that eat all the leaves off anything I plant, a camellia was eaten to the ground, a french prune tree was nearly decapitated, a grape vine, a wood betony, tiger lilies, celery, onions, three blueberry bushes were eaten to death.  A Winter Banana apple tree was stripped of its fruit and demolished.

They get into the cars.  While driving the van once, bits of Kleenex began blowing out of the heater vent, followed by carpet fluff and some colorful threads.  When I opened the door a mouse ran out. I put a bottle of peppermint extract into the utility drawer, after I found someone had chewed up a matchbox in there.  Later I found a nest in the engine compartment comprised of insulation and bits of a chenille blanket.

The best remedy so far seems to be the cornmeal and jiffy corn muffin mix, just enough sugar to appeal to their delicate sensibilities, plus enough baking soda to give them gas.  They go to their little holms and to bed with indigestion, and wake up demised.  Rats can’t burp, a gift from the gods, as they are the only creatures for whom jiffy corn baking soda is lethal. 

Another oddity, I suddenly stopped drinking alcohol sometime last summer. I’ve been very careful about what I consume since the possible food poisoning incident early this month- woke up with excruciating back pain at 3:30 AM–I dreamed I was herding cats, tigers, leopards, in and out of a cage tied together with plastic shopping bags and string and wire.

There has been a lot of trauma going on in general, and I am very skittish, can’t sleep, too much light, too much noise. I think it is manifesting in my body as sudden pain. Lots of writing in the book of Grrrr, trying to find the new normal. Fun is barely fun, I am disentangling myself from where I am not needed, which is just about anywhere.

Think I’ll have a corn muffin and a bicarb, take a nap and check you later.