Rat-a-tat-tat by Nicole

We live in the middle of nowhere and I actually mean that! The closet towns are Prosser and Mabton which are about 30 miles north of our little place. We live on a ranch, 8.5 miles away from Mercer Canyons farm, where Trent works, A LOT since harvest is coming to a close. I can see our neighbor's (the ranch owners) trees, which surround their house about 1 mile away. That's the only house I can see from ours.

It's really nice out here, peaceful & beautiful, a wonderful place to raise kids. The obvious downside is of course having to drive 45-60 minutes to get back into "civilization." It hasn't bothered me one little bit though, the drive is quite beautiful, mostly along the Columbia river and it goes pretty quickly. There are other downsides though, not nearly so noticeable, but downsides nonetheless....

Trent noticed it right away, strange droppings on our front deck. Not your run of the mill mouse droppings, quite common on ranches and farms, but no, much bigger then mouse droppings. "It's must be a gopher" he convinced himself of one day, "but I don't see any gopher holes." This went on for days, he would ponder what on earth was living under our deck, and pooping on our front step. I pretended not to notice, and always stepped over the little droppings on my way in and out. Mostly I stayed inside though. See, I'm not much of a bug, insect, rodent, small wild animal fan. I pretty much despise those sorts of things and avoid them at all cost. But my curiosity got the best of me.

One afternoon the ranch owner, Doris, called me to check how things were going. I updated her then I started explaining the droppings on the deck and telling her that Trent thinks it's a gopher and what not. She listened, and then when I finally stopped babbaling she said "I think it's a rat. We get them in the barn sometimes and I saw the droppings the other day and it looks just like a rat to me."

"A rat? Like a rat, rat?" I asked, very unhappy and disgusted to be receiving such terrible news.

"Yeah, so make sure you get some poison out right away, because they can get in your car and cause a lot of damage."

"In my car? like inside?!?!"

"No, not inside, but under the hood."

That night when Trent got home, I had him put out poison right away. The next morning it was pretty much gone. Trent and I were shocked to say the least and put out more. Apparently to kill a rat, it needs to eat poison for about a week straight. But we were committed to getting rid of this thing.

One day I was out in the van with Ila, coming home from a shopping trip, and I though I heard something near the hood of the van. I was pretty freakout, and will admit that i jumped back into the van and slammed the door. I had a terrible feeling that that rat was scoping out the van or something, or worse, in it. I kept telling myself I was hearing things, but the sounds didn't stop. Trent said he had heard something out there too one night, but didn't think too much of it.

On Tuesday Doris (and her 4 dogs, 2 or which are skilled rat hunters) came over with her son and his friend to get some stuff out of the spare room they had stored here. She asked how the rat hunt was going after seeing the droppings on the deck. I told her we had been poisoning it for about 5 days and her son said it takes at least a week and to keep on it. A few minutes later, one of the dogs went missing and Doris went around the side of the house to find him. On her way back, she passed by the van, and one of her rat hunting dogs was pacing back and forth in front of the van. "Um, Nicole, the rat is in your van!" she said.

"What?! It's in the van?!" I yelled.

Then the son (I can't remember his name) and Patrick (the friend) came over. "If you pop the hood we can check and see if it's really in there." her son said. So, I popped the hood. He opened it as the three of them stood over it, and all at once they jumped back! "Huuooo! I saw it! Did you see it? Where did he go?" Doris cried. "It's down in there, I can see his tail!" said Patrick excitedly! Meanwhile, the son reached his hand into the engine area and pulled out a huge (the size of a deflated basketball) rats nest.

I ran inside with Ila and called Trent "It's in the van, the rat is in the van! It's in the van! there was a nest in there and everything!"

"What?!" Trent said. "It's in the van?!"

"Yes, Doris' son and friend are over here and they are going to try and kill it and get it out, I'll call you back later!"

I'll skip the yucky and lengthy details here and tell you that they did kill the rat, and got him out. It was a big rat, with big teeth. It was pretty nasty, but I did manage to snap a picture of him with my phone so Trent could see it. They disposed of it somewhere for me.

So, our grounds and our van's engine are rat free now, and we'll do everything in our power to keep it that way! I have a lot to learn about farm like, but one thing I will NOT learn to do is put up with rodents! If they want to eat poison and die they can come on over, but hopefully they'll just keep away! Also, we finally found the perfect name for our van! Remy. Some of you may know where we got that name, and others, you'll just have to brush up on your Pixar.