WHY WON’T ANIMALS DO WHAT THEY’RE TELT?

Mice, wasps, ticks, midges and cats... how do you deal with them? Rab has tried humane traps, trowels and brooms but all to no avail.

Iam under siege. At least, that’s how it feels some days, or months. First, the mice are back, or certainly a mouse. Quite a big one too. He popped oot from behind a bookcase one evening when I was watching the football. Just gawped at me impudently for a bit then said: “Who’s winnin’, Rab?” I put some seeds in a humane trap but, when I looked later and saw the mechanism had closed, it was withoot a moose inside. Little scamp.

I have doubts, as previously recorded, about these “humane” traps, having had two mice die in them and one emerge looking right wabbit. One constituency of thought says they just die of starvation or predation when you release them in the wild, and that it’s probably more humane to use one of the quick death traps.

Who knows? It would be fine if it were just one moose, and he didn’t poop everywhere. But, while I’m no wildlife expert, I fear it’s difficult to toilet-train a moose. They breed like, er, rabbits too.

Another unwelcome guest came in the shape of a wasp in the garden shed. More than one indeed. Animals: always hunting in packs. These had started to built another bike or nest, so I blocked up their means of ingress and removed the papery nest, which thankfully had nowt in it.

While I was blocking up the wide gap in the shed wall with a plank of wood, one big wasp in particular kept trying to get in. I was surprised he didn’t try to sting me, particularly when I flapped at him with a trowel. Eventually, I whacked him with the trowel, then felt terribly guilty about it. It had been a sucker punch. Not quite Queensberry rules.

I felt no such guilt in removing another tick from my thigh. They’re a horrible pest, burrowing into your skin and carrying a threat of debilitating malady.

I’ve a special wee stick for removing them but you also need a magnifying glass while doing this as they’re right teeny.

As usual, I’d acquired this tick while cutting long grass to prevent ticks gathering atop it. I fear my aesthetically pleasing set-up of mown

paths through wildflowers and grass may have to be abandoned. Midges are another menace here. Tiny terrorists. I always feel them around my face and ears. Next morning, I find red weals all over the veins in my arms, even after I’d taped down my cuffs. I’d like to cuff these wee monsters round the lughole.

A friend of mine always feels them around her face, but that’s where she gets the weals as weel, poor lass.

Cats also venture into the garden, and the birds’ alarm cries lead me to escort said

moggies from the premises. Then I see them in the village and pat them on the heid amicably.

Poor beasts, they must think: ‘One minute he’s chasin’ ye wi’ a broom, the next he’s pattin’ ye oan the heid. Ah just want tae ken where ah stand, ken?’

You’re one to talk, Tiddles: purring one minute, hissing the next. The fact is that, if all youse animals would just dae as you’re tellt, we’d all rub along

nicely.

I FEAR IT’S DIFFICULT TO TOILET-TRAIN A MOOSE. THEY BREED LIKE, ER,

RABBITS TOO

Just gawped at me impudently for a bit then said: “Who’s winnin’, Rab?”