Latest plot visit did NOT go to plan

I recently told you about the baby rats in the compost bin and yes, we did actually think they were cute. We had some long discussions at home about how to tackle the situation and agreed we would get some humane traps so they could be relocated.

While waiting for the traps, I thought a little visit on Sunday would be in order to see if anything had changed – oh boy had it.

We took Scooby with us in case there were some large, angry parent rats who were planning some sort of attack!

The whole story is in my latest YouTube video which I’ll link below in case you want to see things as they happened but I’ll give you the short version here. After we disturbed the nest last time, the mother had decided to abandon ship and move on – but left 7 babies behind. I found them.

She must have left pretty quickly because they looked the same size and some pretty much in the same place as last time. Not one of them had survived and to be honest, that broke my heart. Yes, I know they are rats but still, to see 7 little bodies in my compost bin was hard to take. Those poor wee souls didn’t know they were rats, they hadn’t stood a chance. I don’t know if it was seeing so many that got to me, or the fact that this all happened on Mother’s Day which I find hard anyway (not to mention the fact that certain people had forgotten about it).

It took a while to sort that out and pull myself together. I had been feeling very nervous about opening the bin as I’d been expecting to see a flurry of activity so I admit, my heart was pounding and I was a little shaky.

After I settled a bit, I did manage to get the tap fix I made, back onto the big barrel. I haven’t been able to fill it up with water to check for leaks but it looks good to me! I also managed a little bit of weeding, before Scooby’s antics started to get on my nerves and we had to take him home! Hope you all had a better weekend and are having a great week so far. x