Oh Rats!

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This post is as much a heads up that I may be out of the picture for a few days longer than normal. Harmonica Joe is coming to visit!

The Rat Pack (2 dogs, 2 cats and I) went on a photo mission last Sunday. The goal: come home with photos of pack rat nests. These critters are elusive unless you find them floating in a tub of water but their nests can normally be found everywhere out here in the desert. Not this Sunday however. The five of us hiked a half mile down the road but found nothing. I had one chance left and that was under the mammoth boulder right behind the barn, the very one which bested the Cat D8R last Fall.
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This is when I discovered that both ditzy Daisy and Brou love to have their photo taken. I squatted down on my haunches to take a photo of the rat nest filling the crevice under the boulder and both dogs immediately filled the view finder. The real target is between their feet.
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Above is what I was really after. You can see a tightly woven collection of twigs and debris to the left of Daisy's tail. This is your basic pack rat home.

As Slim will attest, pack rats do love to abscond with shiny items. He has yet to find the key to his Bobcat after laying it down on a salt block in his tack room. He disassembled the huge twig nest in one corner of the room but never found the key. Must have been a visiting pack rat who took the key home with him.

This is not just an impromptu desert nature tour here. I am going somewhere with all this so hold these thoughts and don't wander off on me, okay?
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I have been receiving some abuse lately for not exercising my truck. No one can accuse me of leaving my little carbon prints all over the place needlessly, that is for sure. Admittedly, the last time I used my truck was probably to chase a renegade cow off our pastures last summer. Now that I think of it, this mission is what prompted Mark to see if the truck still fired up last week - cow chasing!!!

From inside the Rat, I heard that loud tick, tick, tick and then nothing. Dead battery. Not good. But it's funny how some things that appear to be not good at the onset turn out to be blessings.

Mark's first natural inclination was to remove the battery and bring it over for a recharge. The next loud exclamation I heard was "Ohmigawd! Hey, you have to see this!" I got a premonition of what he had found and grabbed the cameras on the way out the door.
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Just as I had suspected! Some pack rat had decided that this long stationary truck would make an ideal home - off the ground and rain-proof. What a mess ... what a rat's nest!

While I am no where near as vehicle fussy as I used to be, I was completely aghast at what this ... this ... little ... creature ... had done to my lovely red Dakota!

Mark and I simultaneously exclaimed that it was a very good thing that the truck hadn't started up, what with all that dry compost to jam belts and ignite.
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While Mark trotted the battery over to the shed, I began grabbing handfuls of sage and chico brush out of the compartment. Who, I mean WHO would have thought that a pack rat would also drag in prickly pear cactus parts?!? I held my stinging hand up to the light to see the fine, hair-like needles which added to the fair-haired fuzz already there. Mark and I have had to deal with this misery before and I wasn't looking forward to myopically tweezing away at these needles, only to have them break off flush with the skin as usual. I cannot understand the nature of such a frail structure which is strong enough to penetrate calloused skin yet has absolutely no side-to-side strength. I suppose it is this quirky survival skill which makes them ever so memorable to anything which dares disturb them. But why a pack rat would be granted immunity to upholster his/her nest with them is even more of a mystery.
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I threw a pair of leather work gloves over to Mark and retreated to find the tweezers and work for the next half hour, using the long, hard rays of the afternoon sun as very necessary back-lighting.

Moral to this story? If you're not going to use a vehicle out here, at least start it up every couple of weeks and park it somewhere else - keeps the pack rats wondering where their perfect condo went. And DON'T leave your keys around!

Now remember, please, I might be gone longer than normal this week, okay?
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Privy Counsel - Strangers in the Night

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Retrospect: September 2006

How did that Sinatra tune go?

Strangers in the night,

Two lonely peepers

Staring at the sight ...

...... ... or something like that

Okay, so I left off the potty tales with noises in the bushes around the outdoor throne, followed by the recent story about strange noises in the barn . These events were within a couple of days of each other and both occurred after darkness had settled in. I'm thinking that commenter JennyE came the closest to guessing the identity of the unseen culprit(s) but we may never know for sure one way or the other, quite thankfully.

A day or so after those events occurred, I headed out for a walk and stopped by the little forever puddle about 30 feet east of the moving trailer. I noticed an unusual splat of dark in the grass and took a closer look.



Hmmm ... juniper berries and all sorts of half-digested things that gave some wild diner a real good run for their efforts. I immediately thought of raccoons but this offering had a little more serious volume to it.

I took a careful hop over some open water and came around through the sage to the mesa side of the bog. What's this? Look at that heel! That was certainly no coyote passing through nor was that scat anything passing through a coyote! Fortunately, this was long before Brou and Daisy had come to live with us.



Before the next rain could obliterate the tracks, I brought some plaster of Paris over from the Rat and made castings of the prints. I decided that if I ever get around to casting my own stepping stones someday, I wanted to include those prints in some of them.

Virgil and Earl both stopped by that week and confirmed my thoughts - that we had been visited by a bear. Earl was very concerned that it had made itself at home so close to the Rat. He suspected that it might have been a nuisance bear which had been relocated from a populated area. Fortunately, that was the last time we saw or heard anything of the like again. T-o-u-c-h wood.

If nothing else, it made for great conversation when Slim arrived back that winter with his cattle. And as usual, Slim was up to sharing a good story of his own. Now you gotta know Slim to really appreciate the telling of it. He's got that charming boyish intensity that takes you right along with him. He leaned forward, elbows on knees and looked at each of us intently eye-to-eye as he began:

"Yeah, I had me a run-in with a bear once. Had cattle up in the mountains, noticed something not right and promised myself to check it out first thing in the morning. Well ... I had too much of a good time that night and woke up a little ... you know ... under the weather? So anyway ... I haul my draggin' butt into the pick-up and head back up there. I get out at the gate just about the time a big ol' bear wanders out from the trees, couldn't a been 30 feet away! Well, I'll tell ya, I never lost a hangover so fast in my life as when I realized that I had only one bullet in my pistol and a pocketknife and that was it." We fell into uncontrollable hysterics when he did a quick wide-eyed double take as he concluded "Just then the bear took a couple of steps in my direction and, I ain't kidding ya, I sh-t mehself!!!"

Now here's the strange part; it wasn't until trying to write this down tonight that I realized that we never did hear the end of that story! Last thing I remember about it was me sliding down the wingback unto the floor, holding my aching sides and wiping the tears out of my eyes when suddenly I smelled the lasagna and garlic bread in the oven and realized that supper was probably ready a long half hour before. At my mention of food being well beyond ready, they stampeded past me to the table and the story got trampled along with me in the rush. Remind me to have him finish that story when he shows up for the winter again.

Next story? It'll be back to current events (as in - "there's never a dull moment around here"). This little photo snip below is a hint for Bruno of what's coming up. We're talking SERIOUS guy fun plus ... sigh ... the usual "Whuh, Geez, who woulda thought THAT would happen?"


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Let There Be Light (some at least)

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No, your monitor is working just fine. The first image is what living off-the-grid away from light pollution on a moonless night with no generator looks like. It IS that black, that deeply black and consuming! I kid you not; it is like a black velvet painting without any trace of Elvis to illuminate it. I found this out one night when we got home a little later than expected. I forget the circumstances but we had probably been socializing with the cowboys a few places up the road from here. As much as it only happens maybe once or twice a year, it is still a fine ol' time to be had. I wouldn't say that I had earned any designated driver status by merit that night as much as an ability to hit the driver side door the quickest. Not to worry, that little aside has nothing to do with the story here.

We came home and realized that we needed to fire up the generator before Mark could even find his way around inside the Rat. I parked in front of the barn at such an angle so that he could find the generator. It wasn't long before light sprang up from within the Rat and I could see Mark through the windows. He quickly put up our window shades and the Rat sunk back into darkness from the outside world. I backed up and headed the Dakota into my usual spot in the barn. In one smooth motion, I killed my headlights, turned the beast off and hopped out, locking the door behind me. And found myself immersed in the most intense and drowning darkness I have ever experienced. Other than the keys still in my hand, I had just relinquished any vague connection to the lit world - and I could not even see those keys now, let alone the truck. I put out my left hand and was relieved to find the familiar bed of the truck at least within reach. I knew that if I followed the line of the bed far enough back that I had a chance of making it through the barn door without running into a wall or a pile of potentially lethal junk.

It was about that time, with me being about five foot into groping along the bed, that I heard something. Something loud, something moving, something BIG by the sound of it. In the following seconds, it appeared to me to be something immense and bipedal, all according to the steady beat along the row of old well pipes that we had salvaged and laid out in one area of the barn. Clang, clang, clang, clang, resounding like a church bell death toll - heavily, steadily and quickly it continued towards me. I felt the invisible keys in my hands. I gauged the chances of returning to the truck door and finding the keyhole in just the right way to insert the key and find myself within the locked safety of the cab. My heart started to pound a little when I realized that I wouldn't likely have the time to execute that option - the creature was getting closer by the nanosecond. Clang, clang, clang, clang, ever closer. What to do, what to do next?!

I guess such situations are where major personality traits come into play. With what I thought was little to lose at this point, I stopped, turned on my heels and addressed the advancing unknown. "Knock it off! Get lost or I will kick your butt on the way out! Make my day, bud - I will enjoy it." And despite the still advancing noise, I turned around again and headed back towards where I presumed the door lay. Somehow I managed to clear that door with my dignity intact and found myself out in the larger engulfing darkness but the hairs on the back of my neck told me that I still might be grabbed from behind at any moment by the unseen predator. Sometimes you just have to understand that you may only have two options; that you are either totally screwed or you're not and so I kept walking vaguely in the last known direction of the Rat and hoping for that latter option. After much pawing ahead of myself in the dark and stumbling, the door of the Rat and its light within greeted me. A small eternity passed by in the process.

Didn't seem worth alarming Mark at that point however; some things just don't seem worth the stress of a re-telling at the time.

The second photo? Well, that is my collection of skulls and antlers tacked along the back inside wall of the barn. Do they sometimes come alive at night and stalk hapless victims? Nah ... probably not.
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A Tiny Visitor

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Well, I wanted to do a rant about our sagging 'good neighbor' relation with the oil field but Mark grabbed me by the collar and held my 90 MPH paddling arms and legs in place once again. I may do it yet but now that I am wound up, I need to write about something - writing is definitely my vent therapy when I run into closed doors, cold solid walls and buttocks people.

As always, I found my solace in nature's blunt and honest agendas. So ... the photos show yesterday's tiny visitor. I happened to notice Brou in hunting mode by the back wall of the barn and went to investigate and to intervene if necessary. I am glad I did. Brou was about to administer the now infamous 'flying coyote pounce' to this little guy. These tiny lizards are so delicate that it doesn't take but one pounce to mortally wound them.

I was able to grab the little guy and exit without Brou seeing this happen so he was content to keep pawing and snorting around where he last saw the lizard. I walked back to the Rat to find the camera. What I soon found out was that it was nearly impossible to set-up the camera and take a photo with only one hand. The other hand had a gentle hold on my rescued friend and I had to be careful to not lose focus on him lest I hold him too tightly. I just had to show you the nearly iridescent blue, white and black markings on his belly. Mark also regrets that the photo does not do justice to the brilliance of these colorings that I showed him as he tended the burn barrel. These striking colors were obviously not meant to impress and attract the attention of predators from above since he was a uniform drab mottled gray on the sky side. He also had the finest little pin-point claws which could propel him directly up or across the weathered barn siding without pause.

We sat on the porch for some time and visited before I walked him back over towards the barn. Rather than put him back into the Brou zone again, I placed him on my shoulder and walked over to a boulder taller than myself and which sits 15 feet from the back of the barn. I leaned back against the boulder and about five minutes later he finally chose to scale up the boulder and roost in a sunny niche above my head. He was simply a beautiful, gentle creature and I was ever so glad to be able to rescue him. I could get in a little snark about some humanity here but I will refrain for now.
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