All around me the trees have started to lose their blazing colors as their leaves have begun to fall, yet my fire bush is still defiantly bright green. I have to admit, I respect its tenacity.

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So Dolores and I are pulling weeds and doing some general cleaning around the yard as summer winds down.  She gets out the Ortho and starts to spray around the base of the house to prevent bugs and such from getting in.  I'm in the back of the house and she's in the front, and I hear a scream.

 

She yells for me, and when I meet up with her, she's lost her normal coffee-with-cream completion and is as pale as...well...me.   She chokes out the second worst name of invaders home owners fear the worst, "we have rats."

 

(The first is termites.)

 

She points a shaky finger at the slate water-catch under the eaves drain and tells me to pick it up.  I ask her what she saw under it, and she screams "JUST PICK IT UP, DAMMIT!!"

 

Hesitantly, I pick it up.  I have visions of a giant, black, greasy rat springing for my jugular the moment I expose it to daylight.  I toss the piece of stone to the side and leap back.

 

And I do see black fur--I concede that.  The black fur on the back of an absolutely terrified two inch long mole.

 

"IT'S A RAT!!" Dolores screams.

 

She proceeds to defend herself by pulling the trigger on the Ortho Max bottle at a rate that would do Chuck Conners as The Rifleman  proud.   Sadly, her aim is a tad wanting, and I find myself doused in enough chemicals that l think may mutate or otherwise make me develop superpowers sometime in the near future.

 

The poor little mole scurries away, terrified but otherwise unharmed.

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