One Rat Bloom Down Fate's Flume

One Rat Bloom Down Fate's Flume

One problem with raising animals on your property is that feeding free choice creates an opportunity for competition from outside of the pens. This year the rats really took off so I did a bit more research on getting rid of them. There are tons of techniques that work quite well. Using poison is problematic if you actually care about nature because when you poison a rat it goes out and dies and then there’s a small cascading failure in nature’s cleanup crew they die too. Not a good thing. Any imbalance you create will ripple for a while as things settle out again. This leads me to a story yet again.

When I first moved south there was this guy I worked with we’ll just call him Phil because that was his name. He had worked for a professor in New Orleans and I can’t remember if it was Tulane or UNO. The professor had done a considerable amount of research and had kept it secretive. He was going to rock his world and boy did he. If I remember correctly the research had to do with heroine addicts and treatment. He had found the one way to save the addicts and he had proof. He was getting ready to do his presentation and asked Phil to proof his speech and paper. He read through it and made it all of the way through the first paragraph before saying something. The guy ripped his head off and told him to proof read it. He’s not paying him to think. He did as he was told and asked if he could watch the presentation. I had a few things like that happen to me and allowed the cards to fall where they needed to fall. Because a person like that is in the wrong position if they’re too arrogant to listen.

At the presentation the professor got as far as Phil did and Phil noticed a small bit of giggling and whispering that quickly rippled and then died down. Once he finished his presentation another professor in attendance raised a hand and was called on. He stood up and calmly stated. “The reason the rats did not vomit when you put them on this particular medication that is less addictive than methadone is that rats physically can’t vomit or even belch!” Needless to say once ‘IT’ was out there everyone started laughing. Bad day for professor and a vindicated Phil who is not one that cares to be graceful in a moment such as this. That ‘IT’ is why I went ahead and switched from plaster of Paris which will lock their innards up to Baking Soda that will get them quicker. The very last video segment on this was quite a bit later in the evening. That means even the stragglers had arrived. So it was a success. One thing to consider when making pens of any sort is leave no runways that go behind other boards or they will become rat four lane highways when you get a bloom like this one.