grossness

Today I spent the day with my dad. I love my dad. There is a rather large area on the side of our house that my dad has wanted to level out and put down pavers on. The leading story behind all of this is that the sideyard has to be finished before we can get another dog. I desperately want a dog at this house so I've volunteered to help my dad do the yardwork so we can get the place finished so that I can partake in the sweet enjoyment of having a dog again.

Today has been the first day that schedules, weather and health have allowed for dad and I to go to work over there. We were making great progress but were deterred by rats... 10 of them. Yes, 10.

The old dog house is in the corner of our backyard. We've known before that rats go under the doghouse, in fact, in the past I lifted the dog house up one afternoon when the dog wouldn't stop sniffing at and trying to get under it. A rat came running out which the dog grabbed and I ran into the house screaming.

Today was the same song 10th verse. We were moving some things so we could rake up some leaves and then disperse some dirt that we had removed from the side of the house. In the process of raking, Dad lifted up the dog house and a rat came running out. Dad's initial reaction was to stomp on it, it stunned the rat but it kept running so I grabbed a bucket and landed it over the rat then I ran inside screaming. When Dad had killed that rat I came back out because he had seen another rat under the dog house. It got away. We chased it but it was able to shimmy under the gate and run out front somewhere. So we went back to the dog house to get rid of the rat nest. Slid the doghouse completely forward to see all that was underneath it and there in the pile of leaves were 8 little teeny rat babies. They were so new their mouths were still opening to feed, they had no hair and their eyes were still closed. They were so innocent. I held the bucket for dad while he shoveled them in. Set the bucket down and ran inside screaming.

It was quite the detour in the day. We eventually made it back to leveling the gravel in the side yard and getting the border put down for the pavers. But all day long all we could think about were the 10 rats that had shared the backyard with us. SO gross.