if I was keeping score I'd have to say the rat is winning

I'm finding my compassion for the rat is waning. The little bastard is still there!

I was gone to the city all day last Thursday so I didn't check on the rat and the progress of the poison until Friday morning.

Actually, I woke up Friday morning to the sound of the rat gnawing away inside the wall. A rude way to wake up. Thirty minutes later, the cat hacked up a hairball on my work table. An hour or so after that, we discover that rabbits had chowed down on five of the broccoli plants in the garden.

Friday was not starting out well.

I checked on the rat after breakfast and he looked nice and comfy and healthy in his nest and totally unconcerned with the flashlight shining in his face. The first hunk of poison bait had been gnawed on so I was thinking that this was the beginning of the end but I dropped another one in there for good measure and closed up the sheetrock panel.

Next on the agenda was fencing the garden. Like I didn't have anything else to do that day.

That accomplished, I worked in the dirt and compost in the little garden and got it ready to plant, finally. It was getting dark though so I didn't get it planted.

Not that I minded working out in the yard Friday as it was a beautiful day.

But back to the resident rat.

I didn't have time this morning as I needed to get to work at the antique store and I wanted to go by the farmer's market on the way, so I didn't check on him til I got home.

He was curled up happily in his nest, had pushed both bait chunks as far away as he could (although both had been gnawed on), and did not look at all like he was suffering from poisoning.

How long does it take that shit to work?

I had a long aluminum pole and I commenced to attack him with it. Poking and poking and stabbing. I know it took several direct hits but still it did not leave. Shit, I don't even know how the hell it got in there in the first place. It must have a way out.

So I closed up the panel once again to wait til tomorrow morning for the next attack.

Oh, and here's the fun part. I noticed something I hadn't noticed before, focused on the rat and all. There is a mummified rat carcass in the space next to his nest.

Nice.

I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to get a pair of long handled barbeque tongs to just grab the little bastard and drag him out.