Our house is a zoo now. Saturday before last I caught a rat in our laundry room. The rat battle has been hard fought, as they foil my traps and scamper around in the attic, prancing and showing off. It got to the point where I’d narrowed down the point of entry to a hole under our laundry room sink. Rather than fill it I left it open and laid a minefield of traps. In the morning the rat was sitting stunned in the room, the traps were sprung around it like confetti and empty bottles after a monster party. I slowly approached and dropped a trash can over it. Somehow, with five ultrasonic repellers, a dozen snap traps, two sticky traps, and a Havahart trap, I caught the thing with a wire wastebasket. Here it is awaiting relocation.
It was a alive but probably tired out from all the “fun”. I let it go a few blocks away at a golf course where it could live out retirement dodging golf balls. This was all before breakfast.
Next stop: chickens. I bought three chickens, a variety of beautiful hens including a cuckoo maran, americauna, and blue lace wyandot. I don’t have pictures yet because they are being silly and hiding under the bushes. And because I’m busy with the third animal we got that day: Oscar.
He’s a rescue dog with an unstoppable friendliness for everyone. He wiggles, he kisses, he snuggles. This dog can’t get enough love, which is a good thing because CH can’t run out of love to give.
Oscar has a comical underbite, giving him the faux fearsomeness of a bulldog, but all he does is lick and snuggle. He’s been coming with my wife and me to work and likes to lie flat out like a lizard.
This is not a dog overly concerned with appearances. Good thing too, with those teeth, Jesus.
In the week since we’ve had him I’ve come to learn what a potent force is love. Such a small creature, a little furball with a curled tail, is capable of bringing so much joy to all of our family. There’s little better than hearing the contented sigh of a dog lying next to you. In and out of adoption he’s finally found his forever home and we couldn’t be happier. And, it seems, neither could he.
Writer, architect, father, husband.