Just like I said in the podcast yesterday, I got pretty ahead of posts so I could take time off and go hunting. Consequently, I have stuff piling up behind me that I want to write about. Today is really more of an update than anything earth shattering. I feel like I need to get better at following up on things that I have previously stated.

A picture is worth 1000 words. As you can see from the photo on the left, I got my target. I think that it does a good job illustrating the final state without getting too graphic. As it turns out, it was a rat. I kind of feel bad for the guy because I saw very little evidence of the creature other than something was trying to get into pantry items. Usually I can at least identify the species by to poop it leaves behind. Not this guy, he was pretty tidy about his invasion.

In fact, the first couple of days that I had set the traps out, I put them next to the flour that he had spilled by getting into the package. I was going to get around to cleaning it up with the vacuum but I figured in the meantime, he might come back to it. In about two days, the flour was all gone without me having to clean it up.

After I threw away the punctured bag and he cleaned up the mess, he moved on to some sleeves of crackers. I moved the traps in and within three days it was over. I was pretty surprised at how big it was. And fortunately, it was trash night so disposal was pretty fast and easy.

Two days later was the anticipated solar eclipse. You can see from my picture on the right what we had. The forecast was already iffy, it rained most of Friday and it was going to rain at some point on Saturday. My picture was taken at totality, but with the fog and the clouds, no chance. I tried really hard to see if I could even notice a difference with the amount of daylight, but I could not.

I knew it was a risk, the weather that is. In fact, the forecast for the day that I am writing is clear in the low seventies. That is pretty unusual for mid-October, but the reality is that to get that temperature, the wind is from the southeast and with that is also moisture (or humidity). It has been at 100% all morning. Even more so than that, we have thick fog just like on the day of the eclipse.

I haven’t spoken with my dad yet. They were still hunting on the central part of the state during the eclipse. I had even purchased some special glasses to give to them so that they could view the eclipse. But, I forgot to leave them. When I do find out if it was possible, I don’t think that I will update you on that conversation. My point with that is re-enforcing what I was saying in the last post. If it isn’t a lot of effort to see an eclipse, you should do it. But, if it requires a three hour drive for a maybe, then I probably wouldn’t.

End Your Programming Routine: Part of my point today was to say that patience is a virtue. I think that we all hope that pest don’t do a whole bunch of damage. But when they do, we have to deal with it. Funny thing, our pest guy came by before I started going after the rat. He asked “any problems?” and I said no without a thought in my mind. I could have called the service, it is part of what I pay for. That being said, the best person and tactic for the job is me because I am in the basement five days a week. I can observe and react and ultimately get my target.