Me VS. Nature?

Since living out here in the country, things have happened to me. Things that if I had the opportunity to watch from a 3rd person perspective, would die laughing over. I think. Or cry. Things I just didn't know about. Never made it on my radar. Oh, my naïveté.

Year 1: The Rat. 

We noticed that something was getting into our house. In our basement. Something ate an entire loaf of bread that was in our pantry. The investigation starts and within a week or so, we knew who the culprit was.

A RAT.

A fucking rat.

Possibly (probably) more than one rat.

CUE PANIC.

ohmigodthisisDISGUSTINGandhowcanIraisemybabiesinahousewithRATS?????

Ok, so we found out where the rat was getting in and blocked, trapped, etc. It was good. We caught several, ginormous rats. We have what we call "The Rat Graveyard" in the tall grass on other side of the driveway.

One day, I'm getting myself and the girls ready for work and daycare in the morning. It's usually a pretty stressful time as we're trying to beat the clock for me to get my ass to work on time. It's a lot of "please at your breakfast", "stop talking and eat", "go potty - no, no, go now, ok, wait, no go NOW", "let me brush your hair, PLEASE stop moving so I can brush your hair", "Ava you need to put pants on today. You have to wear pants to daycare", "Why do you wait until RIGHT NOW to have to go poop?" you get the idea.

I always try to give myself more time and I always fail.

I'm always rushing.

I'm loading the truck (because I need to take several trips, to get my purse, girls backpacks, lunches, coffee, in the truck) and I hear "squeak".

I stop.

Fuck.

"Squeak-squeak"

Fuck fuck.

Call Steve.

Me: um, babe? I hear squeaking in the garage, near the door

Steve: oh, ok, there's a trap behind that plywood, move that and see what's under there. (mind you, he's completely calm and casual, and I'm FREAKING OUT)

Me:....FUCK there's a rat that's trapped by its back leg. It's struggling. And screaming. omg. Omg. WHAT DO I DO? I'm already starting to sweat.

Steve: ok babe. Calm down. You need to calm down. Get my .22 BB gun off my work bench. Fire a test shot out into the driveway to make sure it doesn't jam.

Me: I'm sorry, WHAT?! (Mind you, I'm wearing hot pink pants and stilettos and have NEVER fired this BB gun)

Steve: put the phone down. You'll need two hands for this.

Me: Wait, WHAT? Omg. Ok, put the phone down. Keep him on speaker.

Ok. Fired.

It worked. (I'm standing as far away from this rat as I can possibly get, while holding plywood back, aiming, closing my eyes, reaching with my arm and firing).

I got it.

But shit.

He didn't die right away. (I'm SORRY this is so morbid, I'm traumatized). So I had to do it again.

Cue the tears.

Lots of tears. I felt terrible.

He stopped squeaking after the second shot.

I heard Steve and the guys at the shop cheering me on. Ugh.

Before this incident, I had never killed anything intentionally. I mean, bugs yes, but nothing like this.

Then I took my kids to daycare and I went to work. All of this happened before 8am.

Year 2: The Fox.

It was a few weeks after our chickens had moved out to their new coop (from our baby chick growing station in our basement). I had a new routine going: get home from work, let the dogs out and the chickens out of their coop, do dinner/bedtime with the girls, and by the time I was done, the chickens will have gone back into their coop to roost for the night.

Worked lovely for the first couple of weeks.

Until it didn't.

Again, blame the naïveté.

One night, I was reading a bedtime story to the girls. We were in Mila's room and I heard rustling and commotion going on outside.

I go to the front door and witness a fox and one of my buff orpingtons wrestling.

The chicken was screaming, there were feathers everywhere. I start screaming and running (I'm wearing a cami and booty shorts - it was summer!) and the fox takes off with my chicken into the woods.

Motherfucker. 

I call Steve. I'm crying, screaming "he took her, he took her" (I realize now that sounds horrible, especially if you have daughters...) and Steve panics and I'm like "the FOX took a CHICKEN" and he calms down and tells me to round them up and to get a stick to defend myself. 

A STICK.

Because his rifle didn't have any ammo :(

I head out the back door this time, running with the stick, Steve is on speaker and I'm chasing this sonofabitch who decided to COME BACK AND TAUNT ME.

I tripped, fell off the back steps and hit the ground with my face.

So now I'm muddy, crying, sweating, and trying to get my chickens back into their coop.

I count.

I'm down 4.

FOUR.

I sat out there until Steve got home from work - he stopped to buy ammo but it was too late. I saw that fox 2 more times as I waited for Steve. I sat out on the 4 wheeler, eating my spaghetti, holding a spotlight and a stick.

We never got him.

The fence went up the following year.

Year 4: my own dogs

Then just the other day I found myself again in a precarious situation. We have two dogs. One who can be off leash (MR) and one who is a rescue, is new, has an unknown history (Bella). We keep Bella leashed at all times so I took her out on our 30ft lead and let MR out in the yard to do their business. I was also heading to the coop to feed leftovers to the chickens and gather our eggs for the day (this was after work, girls were eating dinner).

I head out and realize when it's too late that there are at least 5 chickens who have jumped the fence. This normally is not a big deal. They will flutter back over the fence when it's time to go to bed. But, BUT. MR was out. And he's tasted chicken before. FUCK.

I have Bella on a 30ft lead, trying to shorten the lead so I have control over her (she had no interest in these chickens, thankfully, so I was able to contain her. But MR was still not contained).

He and a chicken faced off.

Neither moved.

I was about 15ft away. Yelling to MR to "COME."

Of course he ignored me. His recall is usually stellar.

But not with a chicken right in front of his face.

The chicken moved right, MR lunged, the chicken fluttered and got away. THANK GOD.

I got to him and needed to figure out a way to secure him, since there were more chickens out and he was lunging for them.

Ok, get the other end of the 30ft lead that Bella is attached to. Tie it around MR's huge neck.

Ok. Got it. I've now secured both dogs, on either end of this lead. I'm holding on to the middle of the lead, being pulled in opposite directions. I'm still trying to head back to the house to keep MR from getting to the chickens, who are wondering what the heck is going on and are FOLLOWING ME.

STOP FOLLOWING ME CHICKENS IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.

I got both dogs secured in our fence.

Only to realize that the fence is broken and the gate swung back open. FML.

I'm sweating at this point. Bella is wandering around wondering why the heck she didn't get a walk and why we're back at the house. MR is tied, but dancing around because he wants to eat those damn chickens.

I finally get them secured in their CRATES (inside the house!) and go back out to deal with my chickens. I got 2 and threw them over the fence.

I'm not sure what happened to the other 3. I'm hoping they made it back over. I'll need to do a head count.

If you know me IRL, you've likely heard the first two stories. Every time I tell these stories, people just look at me like I have 10 heads and just cannot believe a lot of this stuff happens to me, before I even get into the office to start my day. Sometimes it's even hard for ME to believe that this shit happens to me.

And why does it seem to happen to me when no one is home to help me?