Rats

It's the wee hours of the morning in Kona. The distant surf rips its velcro along the shore; something rumbles like an earthquake, a dog barks into the jungle, and the chirruping continues to the left and the right of my house.

At first (okay, for going on six years), I thought the noise was crickets. Maybe they were a little wetter in Hawaii and sounded warblier due to moisture differences.

When we had some rats in the house, I started to notice a change in the crickets' songs in the nights when a rat would carry home a sticky trap, slapping every wall and barrier on its way. Slowly it dawned on me that my flock o' crickets was actually a pack o' rats. Yech.

They're singing right now, out in the dark on the lava rock wall (they love to nest in the rock walls). I think one is looking in the window and telling the others what I'm doing. Maybe it's telling another, "Okay, she's not looking. Carry out the saucepot now." I hope that I'm not the saucepot.

Tomorrow I must launch my next phase in the battle for turf. I regret the death that, hopefully, will ensue because I hate for anything to have to die over boundaries. But the creep factor is pretty high when in the night you hear a watery chorus and know that they've figured out how to get in and out of your house.

Open doors seem to help. Last night we were settling down for the evening, and a field mouse cruised in the door. "Yo." David and Jack gave him a circuit of chase. The mouse clearly knows the lay of the land in here.

Our friends Michael and John have One of Those houses up north on this island. It's luxury living with open spaces and doors that all open to no doors, no walls, and the breezes play through the house.

Apparently, so do the mice. On our tour of the place, I was gratified to see a sticky trap in the hall. Why would I be so glad to see someone else has my struggle? Because mousery loves company.