Oh, Rats.

I’ve had a few too many brushes with nature this week. Not nice nature, like frolicking fauns and fluttering butterflies.

No. I’m talking spiders, moles, and (gulp) rats.

First of all, I am well aware that spiders do us a favor by eating a bunch of bugs, and I know I am way bigger than they are, and yes, Charlotte was an awfully smart, kind, and loving arachnid.

But I still don’t like ‘em.

There seem to be a lot more spiders invading the house than usual this fall, and I’ve been forced to be the spider-killer as Dave has been in Germany the last two weeks. My friend Angela, soon to be known the world over as Spidergirl, was bitten by a little spider yesterday. She said it really stung, and she got a bad looking mark on her hand as a result, so now I am not only creeped out by them, but scared of them too (although it has been fun waiting for Angela to start shooting webs from her wrists).

Moving on to moles (or maybe voles? I’m not sure but they look like fat mice with short tails). They really seem to like our yard. Maybe it’s the field we border, maybe it’s our lack of cats or dogs, or perhaps we are such charismatic people they just feel drawn to us. Whatever the reason, we are overrun with them. They are making tunnels under our lawn mostly, but all summer I’ve seen them running through grass and mulch when they see us coming, and I don’t like it.

I was mowing the lawn this week, when one particularly dumb mole ran across the grass ahead of me and into a flower bed. He wanted to get back to where he came from, but would time his return poorly. Every time I came back around with my mower, I’d see him running down the bed toward the grass then he’d realize I was coming, and he’d run back again. And again. And again. Eventually I stopped seeing him, which was worse! I pictured him running around my feet in the grass and I got very jumpy and itchy until I moved on to another part of the yard.

So…the rat.

I found one in the pool. Dead. Big. Long tail. Definitely a rat. No husband around to get him out. I did what any responsible, adult woman would do in my situation.

Yeah, I called my dad. He completely understood, drove over, fished him out and threw him into the field for me as I watched from the window.

Included as a bonus, here is a picture of a praying mantis Jack and I found on our doorstep.