Three Blind Mice

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.

See how they run. See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer’s wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

Did you ever see such a sight in your life,

As three blind mice?

When I was just a tiny tot, my Grandmother we named "Bumby" sang us this nursery rhyme.  The song was upbeat and perky.  It was very uplifting and invoked upon the listener a sense of happiness, peace and calm.  Yeah, no.  Nursery rhymes were disturbing, dark, and twisted.  

Practically speaking, however, rats and mice are vermin.  I make it part of my mission statement to eradicate (e-rat-icate) them from our property.  When the weather begins to cool, they seek refuge in our barn.  The barn is cozy, filled with hay for the winter - perfect for rat nests.  There is always some leftover grain that the rats devour.  They are nasty animals.  They carry disease.  They pee on the hay.  They make a mess.  Therefore, they must go.

I am not going to cut off their tails with a carving knife.  I trap them in my heavy duty rat traps.  These traps are deadly.  I bait the traps by smearing chunky peanut butter on them and set the trap.  You must be very careful.  If the hair-trigger goes off and snaps on your finger, it will break bones.  In the last six days, I have ended the lives of four rats...

SNAP!

CRACKLE!

POP!

These were all young rats.  Where young ones are, there are older ones.  I'll keep trying to kill them.  I don't want them blind.  I want them dead.  Perhaps listening to dark nursery rhymes as a child affected my civility.

Removing the Rodents

The barn has long been a haven for rodents.  Every year I kill them and for a while, I see neither hide nor hair of the filthy animals.  There are woods nearby, so I assume more come out of the woods to re-populate our comfortable barn.  So the work of rate removal is never done.  It is a task that stretches out in perpetuity.  For some strange reason, rat traps don't work too good.  The rats seem to be too smart to be caught.

But they have to be eliminated.  They nest up in the loft on top of the hay.  They roam the barn floor at night, looking for morsels of feed or rice that the cows or chickens have dropped.  When we come in the barn and turn on the lights, the rats scurry up into the rafters and into the hay for cover.  The trouble with the disgusting creatures is that they pee on the hay and then the cows won't eat it.  That won't do.  The rats must be killed.

The best method of rat killin' I've had success with has been with my old Marlin .22 lever action rifle loaded with rat shot - or pest control shot, as it is officially called.  I walked out to the barn at around 10 pm, turned on the lights and watched the rats run.  Go ahead, make my day, night.

Two shots and two juvenile rats take a permanent dirt nap.

You Dirty Rats

I picked them up, skinned them and dressed them out and brought them in to Tricia.  She usually seasons them, dredges them in flour and then pan fries them in a cast iron skillet.  I'm just joking, of course.  I went out again tonight to kill more, but they were still gun-shy from the death of their friend from last night and I didn't see or hear anything.  They stayed hidden.  I know they are there, though, biding their time.  I'll be back in a couple of days to finish what I started.