Ah, pack rat season has begun. Last week there was a little "gift" left for us by the door on the back deck. It always starts this way. A little leaf, a chewed-off flower or maybe a pine cone or some other treasured little piece of pack rat paraphernalia. Sometimes the gifts change daily, almost always artfully arranged. Also artfully arranged is the beginning of a nest under the hood of our vehicles. 

Although extremely cute, they are nasty little beggars and stink to high heaven. They also chew through wires under the hood and once we even had one get tangled up in the serpentine belt of our Surburban, kiling the rat and throwing the belt right off. And trust me, the truck doesn't go anywhere without it. In short, they are a nuisance. And, every year at this time of the year it's the same old routine as the rats prepare to bed down for the coming winter.

So, we've been setting the no-kill trap evey night, baiting it with pupperoni dog treats because they smell so much. Each night the bait is taken, but the trap is not tripped. Last night while laying in bed I thought I heard the clang! of the trap springing shut. This morning, sure enough, there was the pack rat in the trap. (The bait this time was an apple slice.) He was not very happy. For some reason I just couldn't feel sorry for him.

We loaded him up in the Ranger and drove off to find a spot in which to release him. We stopped, pulled over to the side of the road, opened the trap and released him. Instead of running for the wide open meadow the stupid creature tried to run over my feet and promptly ran right under the Ranger. It did not come out the other side. sigh. There aren't too many places underneath the Ranger where he could hide, but we didn't see him. We knew he was there and we sure didn't want to drive him right back home with us, so we went for a ride hoping to lose him along the way.

I told Rick he should step on the brakes really hard and maybe that would jar him loose. He did so and we immediatley smelled the stench of pack rat. Rick said, well I guess we at least mananged to make him pee himself ... but we didn't see him anywhere behind us. We drove around for a little while, jamming on the brakes here and there but to no avail as far as we could tell. We took the bumpiest way home we could think of. Still nothing.

When we got home I got out of the Ranger and could smell pack rat stench. I looked down at the right front tire and saw bits and pieces of what used to be the pack rat lodged in the wheel. So that was where the critter was hiding! When Rick washed the wheel out he found the remains of the rat almost intact. Sorry, rat, we tried our best to save you but you had to be a smarty-pants.

So much for our no-kill trap.