Sometimes life isn't all beer and skittles.
This summer (almost wound down, thank the Fates) has not been all that great for me, with the possible exception of the really productive monsoon season. I love a good storm, and we have had some doozies.
When we become a certain age — and, my dear readers, I am CERTAINLY a certain age — little ailments tend to creep up. They have a tendency to do this when we want to spend time swimming and gadding about with friends and family, or taking part in other playful activities.
It happened to me this year; I really wanted to title this " 'Twas the Summer of My Discontent."
When things turn unpleasant, I prefer to think about something else — anything else. This last week, it was pack rats. Before you think I'm totally bonkers, there was a reason for this mental folly. A serviceman was at our house recently, and I mentioned that I had a dead baby pack rat stuck in the filter of my pool. The poor pool cleaner had to extricate this little charmer. Yuck!
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The man told me that pack rats are immune to rattlesnake venom and hang out with those particular snakes. That couldn't be true, I thought much later. This kind of chitchat always sets me on a quest for information.
Snakes happen to be a favorite of mine. Yes, even rattlers, though I have a great respect for them and their defenses. I had never heard of the phenomenon of rattlers and pack rats. I know that king snakes have a resistance to rattlesnake venom, but given a very large rattlesnake and a small king snake, my money's on the rattler's bite.
As it turns out, pack rats are prey for coyotes, bobcats, owls and all sorts of snakes, including rattlers.
What surprised me, when I started to read up on the subject, is that these rodents are also the animals we call wood rats, sometimes trading rats. Where I lived until a few years ago, in Northern California, we were rife with wood rats. Their nests were quite large and a jumble of dead plants. They looked a bit like beaver dams.
We never thought of them as doing damage to anything in particular. But when we moved to Tucson, we were warned repeatedly about the great damage done by local pack rats.
And it is true. These rodents can do a good deal of harm to a household. They gnaw on wiring, car engines, pipes — whatever they can get those nasty ever-growing incisors into.
Their name tells the story, as they love to stash bits and pieces in their nests. They are especially fond of shiny objects, a characteristic many of nature's creatures share.
As for the less common name "trading rats," it's earned, but not in the true sense of the term. Pack rats and other wood rats can carry only one good-sized treasure at a time in their grubby maws. If they spot something more attractive on the way to their stash, they drop the original choice and "trade" it for the new item.
Of the many species of wood rats in our country, there are only seven in the deserts. Our most common local guy is Neotoma albigula. They can grow to 15 inches! They are fairly uniformly gray with white feet.
They build their nests at the base of chollas and prickly pear, using the spines as a deterrent to other critters. They are also known to inhabit burrows. Unfortunately, they are great breeders (a rodent proclivity); they can produce up to five litters a year, and they're mature enough to breed in 60 days.
They get almost all their water from the vegetation they consume. I don't suppose electrical wiring and such is very juicy.
I have seen a few pack rats, and as rats go, they aren't all that ugly. They are almost cute when compared with the Norwegian rats I saw often in the cities of California.
I am feeling better as we do a gentle slide into my favorite season of all: autumn. May we all have a lovely transition and nary a visit from those little "traders."
