Pop-up Books for Hillbillies

As you may know , we've been on a sort of crusade around here to rid the place from the over abundance of vermin. We've tried everything from spring traps, battery powered zap traps, cats, poison, sticky traps etc... The sticky traps seemed to be a joke. We even found some with foot prints all over the surface... despite the vigorous claim on the package front stating the "extreme sticking" power of the glop on it. Yeah... whatever. Okay. ... then, there was a trap in one of the chicken pens that a rat decided to cover with shavings/bedding and then walk all over it. They are mocking us. I'd completely given up on the sticky trap line and put my faith in the poison (we've already seen one die in convulsions and we can smell a really ripe one stuck behind the fence out back... so there you little beasts!!!) , ANYway, this morning Elly May comes up with a sticky trap that tells a whole story. It says... well... just look at the pictures....
An overall view. There is a whole story here if you look close enough. There is a rat foot.... cat fur .. flies....

Okay.. he isn't really part of the story but he was sitting there looking cute and in case you needed to rest your eyes before moving on...

Ah, there it is. The only evidence left of the previous , if only temporary occupant.

These things work as fly traps too I guess..

Ultimate sticking power... well... maybe if you're a cat.. Anyway, so if you didn't get the whole story there... Rat gets stuck... (miraculously if you ask me...) , resident stray cat comes along and grabs rat and eats it (all but a foot) , cat gets stuck, leaves lots of fur (poor kitty) , flies only thing left who can't get out. So there you go , a pop up book story.

The Ick Factor

I was passing by an area by an orange tree outback recently and got a whiff of something none too pleasant... Hmmm... smells like something died... Then Elly May comes in the house and starts pulling gloves on and asks all excited like if I want to go do a photo shoot... "What did you catch?" .. Back tracking.. A while back, we decided to get some new rat traps to attempt to make a dent in the plague like numbers we seem to have around here devouring our fruit and so forth. So Mom found this one that actually zaps them with an electric current and they die instantly .. or so it says. Well.. it had been sitting out there a loooooong time and no results. BUT , apparently someone decided that peanut butter smelled too good and wandered in for a closer look. Last look he ever took. We'd given up checking the thing since it didn't seem to be catching anyone but the smell did catch our attention the other day. Thus... .. the photo montage... If you are squeamish.. I suggest you skip. I know I say that a lot but I'm just warning you ahead of time. There is no blood but it is kind of icky .

It had become quite aromatic by this point. I think it had only been in there a couple days at most.

I am dead...

Fly eggs. Isn't that lovely?

Very... hmmm. then when Elly May chucked it... (tossing it fairly vigorously...) the tail skin slipped off in her hand. Yes... she had gloves on but still.. that is ..... well.... gross. And sort of nauseating when you have the whole dead rat smell to go with it. .... and the fly eggs too of course... mmmmmm..

The Great Trapping Adventure..

Soo, we are plagued by an over population of rats... squirrels too , but rats are the subject of this story. They eat oranges, peaches, avacados, tomatoes (grrrrrrr) , chicken feed, whatever they can get their teeth into. So we have declared war on them. I bought a case of 24 traps through amazon... most of them work, some were defective. But they have nice hair triggers , which is good because some of the rats are small and can stand on the trap and not set it off.

Like this one, it somehow got itself into an empty trash can and we put some traps in there and it just walked all over them and nothing happened. So I starting chucking things in there to set the trap off and FINALLY it sprung.. Then for some reason... we didn't empty the trap so it got to stay there and become trap art. Now, I saw Ratatouille and adored Remy like everyone else. In fact , I feel a great kinship with Remy .. our relationship to food and cooking and all. Some friends even told me Remy reminded them of me....BUT, these are NOT Remy! They steal. So I refuse to get all sentimental over them. ANYway , I just love the nose here...

The line up....

Peanut butter and birdseed make very good bait. And the boys love peanut butter too...

Can I have some???

Please?? I'll sit nice.

This guy has some powerful back legs. He just stands on them.

Elly May's expert hands..

And here.. are the results. Out of ALL those traps, we get ... a head... Well, you see, we have this feral cat (Gingervere we call him) that is a very good ratter and also likes to pick the traps clean. And he got to this one before we did . I think this is the most disgusting picture ( I have trouble with eyes... I can handle a lot of blood and gore ... but eyes??? eww) but Elly May insisted it be posted. I left it big so you can blow it up to see all the detail... for the interested few. ick..

Well, another day , another rat.. yesterday we got another one. This is one of those small ones that walk all over the trigger without setting it off... But THESE have such delicate triggers... muahahah. I love the composition of this picture. Elly May got the angles just right. ;-)

The end.