Contrary to the Chinese calendar, the year of the rat at Dogpatch was 2007.  The last official one had been in been in 1994, but every year is the year of some kind of rodent at Dogpatch.   Two weeks ago I caught a rabbit in the living room with my bare hands.  I am not kidding.  There was a weasel in the kitchen in March.

When I moved into Dogpatch twenty years ago, I had never lived in a truly old house before.  My experience with "vermin" was limited to the terrors of roaches during my urban college years, and squirrels playing at bowls in the attic of my childhood home.  So when I heard noises in the eaves of Dogpatch, despite not being remotely a city girl, I assumed it was  harmless squirrels   scampering about.  Why they were scampering about in the middle of the night, I didn't bother to consider.

This blissful  state of ignorance lasted for several years, until one day I saw at the bird feeder not only the pretty cardinals and house wrens, and charming chipmunks and red squirrels, but unmistakably,  a rat.  It was kind of cute, except for that naked tail, but my fantasy of squirrels in the eaves was destroyed forever.  Inevitably, the rats found a way into the house proper, beyond the beadboard and plaster that had restricted them to the eaves and the basement.  They set up a dynasty that took some time to overthrow.  The events of 1994 I must pass over with a shudder, except to say that I learned rats will chew through the  lid of a heavy plastic garbage can, and galvanized steel is the only way to go for dog food  and bird seed storage. 

In 2007, Dogpatch had become Dogpatch for real through a combination of deep, unrelenting depression and the arrival of quantities of stuff from the emptying of the family home.  Upstairs and downstairs rooms were filled waist-high with piles of stuff, sometimes in boxes, and sometimes just heaped.  There were narrow footpaths that led through the wilderness to oases - the computer, the bed, the working bathroom, the t.v., the kitchen sink.  Otherwise, the place was impenetrable to human traffic.  But it was just fine for rats.  They came back.    During the great blizzard of February, I could hear them scuffling around in the abandoned pantry as I huddled next door in the dining room, watching Netflix  movies.  

For a  while, they behaved.  They left me alone.  I left them alone.  Minnesota Idaho, the mighty hunter cat, watched them dance around the kitchen from his sofa in the living room.  He couldn't really hunt them successfully, I think because the mountains of stuff he had to negotiate prevented the use of that whole element of surprise essential to successful rat-hunting.  

But of course, things got worse.   The pioneer rats settled down and had a family.  Not only could I no longer leave a bar of soap by the kitchen sink (soap is a rat and mouse delicacy, like the finest chevre), my steel wool soap pads were disappearing.  A whole new box of Brillo in the cabinet under the sink was emptied, taken away to line the nests of Dogpatch rat children.  

My usual food-storage places were no longer adequate.  The rats were climbing shelves I thought unscaleable.  I discovered the reason why upper kitchen cupboards have doors, and it's not to hide your ancient condiment collection. Days I forgot to close the doors firmly, I regretted it.  One day, I found a jar of Nutella on the floor below, with the lid unscrewed.  My precious  horde of rice noodles was nibbled and a whole package of spring roll wrappers disappeared.  And one bad morning,  a rat and I gave each other heart attacks when it leaped out from the topmost shelf as I shrieked.

The microwave and toaster oven had to be pressed into service as extra bread boxes.  The dead dishwasher became a handy rat-proof keep for pasta and raisins.  I dragged out all the metal canisters I could find.  I moved boxes of soy milk to higher and higher shelves. 

Perhaps I should mention here that I don't have a working refrigerator, and haven't had one in over eight years.  Actually, I do own one, but it hasn't been delivered yet, which is another story.  But the lack of refrigerator made the food storage problem a little more awkward.  At one point the rats made off with a whole pound of chicken that was keeping cool in the mud room.  They had to have slept well that night.  

I think the turning point in the rat invasion came when I  put five pounds of whole wheat flour into a sturdy box on the sofa right next to the mighty hunter, pending transfer to something more secure the next day.  I counted on Mini guarding it.    During the night, the rats broke in and ate nearly half of it, while seated next to an 18-pound cat.  Obviously, I had to do something.