Rats Don't Have Racing Stripes

Those are fast shoes!" I used to tell our children this when they were small and didn't like change. I would have them run around like crazy until they agreed by saying something like "yeah really fast!" While they mostly outgrew all of those little white lies that mother used to make, "fast shoes" I think will always stay with them.  It's funny how these things travel across the curriculum of life and pop up in the most unusual places. Perhaps in their young minds they wanted to please mom and apparently mom for some odd reason valued fast.

A number of summers ago I installed a rather tiny pond in the planter outside of my living room windows. I was very pleased with my clever self and could hardly wait to see all of the  beautiful visitors that I would attract to it. Confirming my smart installation, my first customers were birds, chipmunks and squirrels. I purchased several inexpensive feeder fish to help keep the insects in check but for some reason they either vanished or leapt to their deaths. Ever the optimist, I rested my head on that while it seemed that I had an uninvited predator to the pond, perhaps it was a beautiful Great Blue Heron! The mystery continued for a couple more trips to the pet store and with not a heron in sight, I decided that it must be our endearing  neighborhood cat.

"Is that Figaro that I see outside of your house?" my neighbor asked one afternoon. Now rats aren't stupid animals, they recognize a welcome mat when they see one and that tiny pond was enough to invite Figaro and his very large extended family to my front yard. So mortified was I that Figaro was doing the backstroke in my pond that I repeatedly denied knowledge of his existence to my neighbor and swore my children to secrecy. 2,368 species and 1,759 subspecies of rodents in the world and I had to attract rats the size of morbidly obese hairless squirrels. I won't go into all of the details; but the Have a Heart traps couldn't contain them, I altered how I composted, we ended up tearing  down a big shed that came with the house when we bought it and I considered setting fire to the place.

Ginny is going on nine years old. For as long as we have had our little terrier mix she has been obsessed with the chipmunks that scurry along the planter with only a pane of glass between them. We call pulling back the curtains, "turning on Ginny's TV." Ginny intensely waits for a chipmunk's arrival and then the chase is on. Because I have lost so many plants in this way, we have to keep our plant table pulled back from the window which creates her speedway.  Chipmunks are clever mischievous little thieves with racing stripes and Ginny instinctively knows it. I have never successfully grown a sunflower for they are forever cutting them down for no other apparent purpose than for the sport of it. They scold anyone and everything with a sharp chirp and dig holes in the most inconvenient places -yet I would never dream of sending them packing like I did Figaro. If it weren't for our resident red fox family, Toby our new neighborhood cat and raptors, I am positive that I would be over run by Chip and Dales!

Now I know that this piece is getting long but it wouldn't be complete without informing you of the fact that those chipmunks given enough time and exposure to Ginny's obsession seem to make a game of teasing her. Once chase is given, those darn little rodents run to the end of the window, turn around and run back along the same path. This causes Ginny to zip back and forth until the varmint disappears down a hole or over the edge of the planter. I know what you are thinking and no I don't believe that I have lost my wits and this is how I know. One day while watching Ginny watch a frozen family of chipmunks, I witnessed the adult of the three go up to the glass and look at Ginny directly in the eye. Though Ginny carried on barking and scratching at the glass that chipmunk held fast then went back to it's youngsters and back to the window again. This was repeated until eventually those youngsters tried it too. Yesterday I heard a clicking at the window, I looked down to see that chipmunk's great great great grandchild scratching at the glass with its tiny paws. What could I do? I called to Ginny letting her know that her favorite program was on. - Norma Manning

Ginny waiting to race