Mystery of the Hidden Eggs

I know it has been Easter and people expect to see all sorts of chocolate eggs about but I have had a mystery in my garden and so far *it* has happened twice!

Not far from here, I was pottering in my garden and I noticed that there had been some disturbance in a pot of chives! Looked like an animal had scraped some of the soil off the top of the pot and had thrown it on the patio. There was a little mound on the edge of the pot and I dug my hand in, hoping it wasn't cat's mess and found an egg! It could have been laid by a bird but it was a brown hen's egg and to make matters worse, there was a sell by stamp on the side of it! I know what you are all thinking. It's a joke! The family are playing a prank on Maggie May!

Well let me tell you, it isn't a joke. I had watered that pot of chives the night before and there was no sign of the egg then. My son and family were on the south coast having a break and although my older grandsons had been here one of the weekends previously, the eldest has an aversion to eggs and certainly wouldn't handle them (one of his autistic traits) and the younger one could never have kept a secret like that. Besides....... no one has been outside the back door but me because of the nesting wrens.

My daughter would have thought it was a waste of an egg and I would have set her off laughing when she saw my puzzled expression if it had been her, so I know it had nothing to do with Deb.

Harry is as mystified as I am and he really isn't good at jokes. What you see in him is what you get..... he couldn't have anything to do with it I am one hundred per cent sure. So my family has been ruled out!

My garden is fairly secure though I suppose anyone could get in anywhere if they really wanted to.

The first time it happened was some weeks ago when I noticed an egg in the gravel by the side of the kitchen, following the underpinning work. It was sucked down tightly into the wet gravel and when I prised it out, it broke. That was also a brown hen's egg with a stamp on the side of the shell.

So it looks like an animal deposited the eggs. What could it be, do you think?

Could a cat have carried one without breaking it? Could a squirrel or a rat? A magpie? A fox?

If they could, why would they do it? Why not eat the eggs? Where did they come from?

All you people who live in exotic places, need not tell me it was a raccoon or a posssum or anything that we don't get here. I want to know what British animal could have done this?

Any ideas gratefully received and it really is not a joke!

In case any of you are wondering why I have a photo of pansies and not chives, well it is raining today and I already had a picture of my pansies but not of chives! Saved me getting wet and I am also a little scared of going out and finding another egg!

Not sure why but my Blogroll gadget didn't show up my last post The Main Attraction on anyone's blog.

Ratty Is Driving Me Batty!

In my post, There's A Rat In The Kitchen (Part 2), I made the mistake of saying that the bad smell has never returned. Well that was blimmen well asking for trouble. I shouldn't have been so blase and arrogant!

Almost over night a blasted rodent has gone and died in the roof space where we cannot get at it........ yet again. How inconsiderate is that?

You know when expatmum commented that she had been tipped off by a Chicago rat catcher about a good way of killing the varmints without actually poisoning them, my son, Sam & I were cracking up with laughter for days. You see, she had been advised that if you put coke down for them to drink, they eventually EXPLODE! That is because they cannot burp or fart and the poor beasts cannot get rid of the gas.

At the time it seemed really funny, but anyone who has ever had trapped wind and knows how uncomfortable this is, will remember the pain, even though we humans can burp and fart to release it. You know I was almost feeling sorry for the little perishers, but not any more. I would gladly cause them to explode in this horrible way, if only I could get the coke to to them in the first place. They are completely contained and we cannot get at them without ripping down the ceiling and we are not doing that again. So we are at a loss as to how to do it.

We had wondered if we could hang a small can of coke under the outside vent with a straw going inside, for them to drink out of, but I guess they would need to be trained up to do that!

This time I am not going to let it get me down. We know the smell will go in a fortnight. We can open windows. The smell cannot harm us, we have been assured.

I recently saw a documentary on TV, of children in South American slums, rummaging through rubbish tips to find something that they could salvage and sell. The producer of this programme told us how bad the smell was from this tip and they had to do it every day of their lives just to survive. Eventually some terrible disease would overtake them.

Well, my life is not that bad. They would envy me with my rare two week smells and would think that my life was luxury compared to theirs. I will continue with this pep talk to myself for as long as I can.

In the meantime, Sam has found a funny video on YouTube that might lighten up the situation. Hope you find it as funny as we did!

By the way, my son Sam decided since he spent so much time helping me with my blog, that he might as well start his own - so he did! Please drop by and pester him to write something!

There's a Rat in the Kitchen (almost) Part 2

The trouble with poisoning a creature (oh, that makes me feel such a heel!) is that it does not always die in the place where you want it to! Obviously this causes a tremendous stink and my Goodness, what a stink! I advise people to stop here if you are squeamish.
The only way to escape the hum is to open windows and doors which is not so good in cold weather. Wrapping up in layers of clothes in a cold room is much preferable to being warmer in an unventilated room I can assure you.
Ratman promised us that the smell would go by the end of the second week, which it did. The longest two weeks of our lives! During this time we spent pounds on aerosol sprays, neutralizing agents and all sorts of other remedies that we tried, from raw onions to incense sticks, non of which worked.
A team of men were sent round by Ratman to examine the drains and a smoke test revealed that there was nothing wrong with toilets or drains. Next door was also tested and given the all clear. For good measure we paid for a camera to go down the sewer which was a compete waste of money, as nothing unusual was found there.
We were advised to dig up about a third of our patio by the kitchen, to see if anything was amiss under it. A small hole was found in a pipe going under the kitchen. That must be it! What joy! The fault was repaired easily and the patio re-cemented in place.
Now we were told that it was alright to knock down the kitchen ceiling that had been trashed by the trap door & rodents.
While this was all being done, everything had been moved out and we had to manage with a microwave, toaster and kettle, as well as a fridge/freezer for a week. Not too bad an inconvenience really.
Harry easily smashed down the ceiling and some not very nice things came down, as you can imagine, but horror of horrors, a large mummified rat fell at his feet, completely dried out and totally flat except for the ribcage & tail.

It was lovely to have a new ceiling, with thick insulation above it, newly plastered and painted. As well as new ceiling lights! A chance to repaint everything. I felt I had a new kitchen.
What a relief! It was all over!
It was while I was ironing one morning ..... I heard it! The unmistakable sound of a creature on the ceiling! My world seemed to be dashed to pieces in an instant.
Ratman was called back and although I liked him, I had hoped I'd never need to see him again. He also looked disappointed to be called back!
"You have two choices," he informed me. "Either move or put up with the occasional visitor in the roof space. He went on to tell me that a fair percentage of his clients never get to the root of their rat problem and even if the kitchen was razed to the ground we might never find an obvious entry point.
He told me of people who had run away from what they thought was a bad rat problem only to find that they moved into a house with a worse one! At least mine was contained and I could put poison in through the outside vents, if the problem got too bad.

We are still here! We have not had a repeat of the bad smell so far. Sometimes we go a long time without hearing anything. We call him Roland when he does visit.
The house is convenient to everything we need. Its just where we want to be at present. Why should we be pushed out by a rodent? The thought of passing on this problem to some unsuspecting family makes me feel guilty. However, we must do something, but what?
We keep promising ourselves that we will pull down the entire kitchen and start afresh - examine everything with a fine tooth comb.

I recently went to the cinema with Sam & Amber to see Ratatouille. All was well until the ceiling collapsed under the weight of the rats and they all tumbled into the kitchen. Well that was only a story, wasn't it?
On a bad night I lie awake and wonder how many rats it would take before our ceiling would give way? However most nights I think of all the bad things going on in the world, people in danger of their lives who would give anything to live in a house like mine, and it all gets put back in perspective.

So here I am, a respectable married lady with 4 lovely grandchildren, 2 part time jobs and a rat!

There's a Rat in the Kitchen (Almost!) Part 1

I didn't really want to start this story, but after all, it is The Year of The Rat! So here goes!

It was several years ago when I first became aware of a scratching noise low down in the kitchen party wall. Harry said I couldn't have heard anything in there because it was a solid wall, nine inches thick. These houses are well over a hundred years old. No way could anything get in there. Must be a neighbour rummaging in a cupboard. Trouble was, the neighbour was always rummaging in the cupboard, but now it seemed further up the wall. What was going on in there?
One day I was cooking the evening meal and heard scratching right at the ceiling level, followed by a thud and a scampering across the ceiling. There was a creature of some sort up there. Gordon Bennett!

Harry was never there when the "thing" was active, in other words he never heard it! Maybe it didn't exist except in my imagination. He couldn't have made that more clear.
I put up with "the thing" for a while hoping it would go away, only it never did go away. It started to party and other "things" started to scamper about with it.
Whether Harry could hear it or not, it was time to do something about it. I rang Council Pest Control on a Thursday. They would send someone round next Wednesday, as that was the day designated for our area and as "it" was not actually in the house, it was not considered an emergency.

The Pest Controller came in an unmarked van. Phew! That was a relief! He turned out to be a very pleasant, helpful young man. He said that although we are never far away from a rat, this area was a squirrel area. That gave me a glimmer of hope.
He climbed up a small ladder, took off a few tiles and peered into our kitchen roof. He said there was a bit of a problem. A sloping roof built over a flat roof ..... creature in a three inch gap between the kitchen ceiling & the top of the flat roof. He couldn't get at it because of the sloping roof being built right on top of the flat roof.
"Only one thing for it," the man said, "You'll have to cut a hole in the ceiling so that I can get a better idea of what we are dealing with."
"He must be mad!," I thought. "If I did that it would be in the house!" He told me it was that or nothing and that he would call round next Wednesday when the hole was cut.

After refusing point blank at first, Harry persuaded me to let him make a trap door in the ceiling. The very thought filled me with horror, but he cut a square about a foot each way and found another piece of plasterboard to fit inside. I bought strong duct tape to cover the joints because it made me feel more secure! Who was I kidding? Couldn't any rodent eat through anything?
I had sleepless nights worrying about whether "it" would jump down into the kitchen while we were asleep. First thing every morning I examined the trap door to see if it was intact.

The Pest Controller called the following Wednesday and peered into the hole using a torch. "Bad news," he told me. "It's rats! Probably 6-8 of them." He put two trays of poison into the opening and sealed it over with the duct tape. He would be back next Wednesday.

(to be continued.)

The Dangers of Recycling!

A few months ago I noticed I was limping because of a pain in my right foot. The whole foot felt as though it was on fire & really hurt when I walked. My chiropractor pulled the affected foot about & asked if there was anything different in my lifestyle. After a very long, hard think, I realized what had caused it. Recycling!

Since Sam & family had come to live with us, there seemed to be much more to recycle.  All his beer & lager cans had been stamped on to make them more compact, using my right foot. (After a course of treatment, the foot pain eased, but this cost a fortune!) As we give all aluminium to a church scheme sponsoring a little girl in India, I was becoming embarrassed by the sudden influx of beer cans & tried to arrange them at the bottom of the bag, hidden from view. Didn't want people thinking that Harry or I were were verging on alcoholism! Now I use a little hammer to flatten the tins & my foot is back to normal. For people like us, who have no garage, recycling can present problems. Our kitchen is overwhelmed by little bags, boxes & bins, each packed with something or other that we have been urged to save by the Council.

The large wheelie bins are only emptied once a fortnight, so we really do need to recycle or there'd be no room left for real rubbish & anything left outside the bin will not be collected.Just looking at some of the houses round here, with small front gardens filled with bags of rubbish, makes it obvious that they are multi let homes. The bins  overflowing with rubbish do attract rats. (I will write about MY rat very soon!)

The Council also provides a box for a variety of things, including paper, glass, foil, tins, spectacles, shoes, batteries & textiles. This is emptied every week & believe me, is heavy when filled! We have separate compost containers provided for house hold food waste & I also have two compost bins in the small garden, but have stopped using these for now, on account of the large number of  fruit flies that somehow or other find their way into the kitchen. For a small yearly rent we have another large wheelie that we can fill with garden waste & cardboard. All this is made into compost & probably sold at a profit by the Council. Bit of a cheek that!

All this recycling is very time consuming & you have to be fairly fit. If you don't get a hernia or slipped disc lifting the heavy boxes, or damaged feet crushing the drinks cans, then you might forget what goes where or which day things are collected. You really need to be with it! Oh, & I still have to walk half a mile to the nearest plastic bank as the Council does not yet pick up plastic for some obscure reason. Is our city unique with all this nonsense? And why don't we get a reward for all the hard work?