Animal Farm

It seems that we have an animal infestation. I have already written about the millions of spiders, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are these ants here that are nasty little buggers. They are tiny, but when they bite, it’s a nice shot of pain, and then the bites itch for like two days afterward. Fortunately for us, they apparently only stick around for part of the year, so we’re hoping they disappear in the near future. And then there are the pets. We inherited a cat and a turtle. The turtle is somewhat elusive. We’ve managed to catch glimpses of the turtle trundling around the backyard only during one week of rains. Otherwise, it seems he stows himself away somewhere we can’t find. And the cat. She’s a lovely cat, with a few quirks we’re trying to train out of her. We do not want her to be a house cat, but she desperately wants to be a house cat. This is easy enough to solve: we throw her (physically) out of the house whenever she tries to get in. We had her quite well trained until she decided she needed to birth her kittens in the house. That was an early and obnoxious wakeup call, but we did manage to keep her outside. But yes, that means we have 4 kittens that mother dearly wants to move into the house. We are on constant vigil to make sure she doesn’t get an opportunity to do so.

But since we’ve moved in, we’ve discovered a variety of creatures that move through our house. We’ve seen crickets, ants, (very) large spiders, moths, butterflies, praying mantis, and cockroaches move through our house. And recently, a rat has attempted to take up residence above our walls… so far it has successfully evaded our attempts at murder. However, we have a spear constantly at the ready to become a shish kabob. I’m sure our cat would be quite happy for the easy meal when the rat does become a skewered fixture.