Rats, Cats, Snakes, & Lizards

There is a wonderful time of day at about noon where all 3 of my children are asleep at the same time for 2.5 hours or so. This is usually when I sew or update this blog. Well yesterday during that time someone came to the front door (they really are on the other side of the fence, but it is close enough to the front door not to have to open the gate to be able to carry on a conversation.) I was standing there talking and all of a sudden something very large crawled out of the plant on the wall next to me and ran down behind the couch. I yelled and moved to the window in the office to explain why I left so abruptly. They thought it was funny... I didn't.

There is a very important point to make here. We have been rat free since right before Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if we have ever been rat free before that. It was a beautiful thing to wake up to the smell of victory... dead rat in my storage room. I knew he was the last one and it took us almost 6 months to get him. RAT FREE for almost 5 months now is unbelievable. Jimmy even installed steel screens in the storage room and kitchen windows, so those jokers would have to show up with a hacksaw if they wanted in this house.

I called Jimmy right away because I was sickened that we might have another rat. Of course he was far away. He called Pedro, the gardener who cuts our grass. Jimmy mows our grass at our forever house, but we pay Pedro to chop our grass here with a machete. Anyway, he came over right away. He asked me if it might have been a snake... what?! I had not even thought of that. You are making it worse!!

I closed all the doors in our house, so that if it was a rat it only had access to our hallway and outside doors, then I gave Pedro a broom and stood on top of the boys' toy box. He looked all over for the dumb thing and couldn't find it. He even flipped the love seat over thinking it crawled in there.

Finally I saw something hanging off the fan. It was a huge ugly lizard. One of those that stands up on its back feet and walks. So much better than a rat!!! He grabbed it by the tail, but it wouldn't let go of the fan. Then he rips its tail off and it takes off towards me and I run yelling down the hall. Finally he barricades the thing off and shoos it, tailless, out the front door. My kids slept through the whole thing!

This guy has to think I'm an idiot. A couple months ago Pedro had to come over one morning and let me and the boys out of their bedroom because we had locked ourselves in there. Silas plays with the lock sometimes and it is on the outside so that he cannot lock himself in his room by himself. I forgot to check it before I went in there with them. Oh well, I'm glad he has a key to our gate or we would have been locked in there until Jimmy came home that evening.

A couple months before that I had to ask one of our neighbors to come get a cat out of our yard that our dogs had killed. They kept tossing it around like a chew toy. I tried to do it myself with a shovel, but I couldn't bring myself to look at it close up. Thankfully it wasn't his cat!

But... the time it mattered the most I took care of something myself. Before we left for Guate I was outside with the boys. They were playing on our rock patio. I was filling up the dogs' water dishes when I saw about a foot-long snake by the spigot. I yelled at the boys and dogs to get back and then I called Jimmy. I HATE snakes... more than rats. I described the snake to Jimmy. He was with Lico and Lico said it was poisonous. I then hung up the phone because the snake started to move towards the patio... where my boys were. If I lost this snake there is no way I would ever allow my boys on that patio again. I grabbed a shovel and started yelling. Then I went running towards the nasty thing. I chopped it in half... screaming while I did it. It must have been pretty cool looking because the boys kept reenacting it afterwards. There was a blood smear on the wall of our patio until the next rain. Jimmy called me back and I told him it was dead. He had been really worried and was very surprised to hear that it was dead. That's what happens when the mama bear comes out. The snake got too close to my boys!

So we are still rat free with only a couple small lizards living with us. I am very thankful!