Bad Day for the Rat

Sorry about the graphic photo. I found this guy when I went out to get the paper. He was lying on our driveway, quite dead. I expect the very large outdoor cat from next door is responsible for his demise.

About a week ago we heard strange goings on late at night that consisted of a loud metallic bang followed by squeaking. (I am not kidding.) I went to the deck door in our bedroom and turned on the light to see what was going on. Nothing. Nada. Niente. A couple of nights later the same sounds. Again nothing. And neither of those were last night. But now I think I know what might have been going on. We have a metal clematis trellis that goes up one of the deck poles. I think the cat caught or almost caught a rat at the bottom of this trellis and we heard the reverberation on the deck. Didn't hear a thing last night. But did find this fellow (larger version if you dare) on the driveway this morning.

Not a great start but the next part of the day went smoothly. I went to get my six month exam after my cataract surgery. Everything is in fine shape and healthy. That was a great piece of news though not a surprise. Phew!

We stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home to get cat food and some other stuff. They were out of cat food. Dang! We are trying to wean our kitties from an all dry food diet onto a healthier wet food diet and TJ's has really excellent cat food at a good price. We will have to go back.

Otherwise the day was okay. A couple of glitches that I won't go into the details about but all in all, not too bad. A lot better for us than for the rat.