In our yard, all animals have always been more than welcome.
We love them more than most people. (Interpret that line as you wish.)
They are such wonderful entertainment.
Our menagerie of visitors consist of the usual characters: chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, and birds of every shape and size.
We put up with a few little voles that tunnel around in the backyard and they love the bird seed and grapes and such that we scatter on our patio for all to eat.
At dusk, our cat Fred loves to watch the meadow-jumping mice that hop and zip around that same patio, collecting any seeds that are left over after the larger animals have had their turn throughout the day.
They are certainly adorable little things and do not live inside buildings as they prefer open areas and grasslands, which certainly ranks them high on my likeability list.
Sometimes we get visits from skunks with their little babies, which are probably the cutest of all wild animal children, in my opinion.
A first this past year has been a sighting of a large opossum that was wandering about the garden after dark.
We love catching sight of any new animals that come by.
However, a new creature has us possibly rethinking that stance.
About two weeks ago my wife spotted a rat skitter by in front of our patio door.
Uh, oh! There goes the neighbourhood.
After a couple of days of regular rat visits throughout the day, as it collected seeds and nuts, it occurred to me that this little guy was not just a passing tourist but a new resident.
After some investigating, I found out it was making a nest inside the hollow concrete step in front of our patio door, which I moved away from the foundation and left the space open, to discourage it from residing there.
The rat immediately moved away.
Success.
But not for long.
A few days later, I spotted it snacking on the patio offerings once again. And regularly.
Further investigation revealed it is not living in our yard, but somewhere nearby.
I am somewhat fearful that the rat could decide to try and make a home in our house this winter, although I’m not a rat expert, and I’m not sure it would want to or even be able to easily enter our newer built home.
Right? Maybe, right? Hopefully, right?
So there is great uncertainty as to what its future holds in our lives.
Despite its reputation, I do think it’s a beautiful little thing, and I truly love all animals.
Live and let live are words my wife and I live by.
I couldn’t possibly stop feeding all our beloved animals that stay here, as they are one of our great joys, watching them live their lives in front of us.
So what do we do?
If we let it be, will there suddenly be a family of rats in the near future?
Where will they decide to live?
I guess one option is to try using a live trap, which I have been looking up online as I write this column.
And, of course, how this would undoubtedly play out, is we will likely catch chipmunks, squirrels and the like before we get that rat. I just know it.
Executing this mission will be a pain, I can just feel it.
And I couldn’t kill it. I just don’t have it in me.
I would have to relocate it somewhere far more wild than our Barrie subdivision, somewhere well outside the city limits.
Do any of our readers have a trained raptor that picks off only rats? I don’t mind if another animal kills it, of course, as they have families to feed.
We once had a red-tailed hawk visit the yard several years ago, sitting on top of our fence, but it has never been observed here since then.
Occasionally, we also hear the hoots of a great horned owl as it sits atop the peak of our roof, but that is far too sparse an occurrence to be an effective rat deterrent.
Why does nature have to be so real and conveniently unmanageable?
Kevin Lamb is a staff reporter with BarrieToday.
