Tuesday September 27, 2022 Guerneville CA.
Dirt bike ride day
I was puttering around the yard figuring out what to do today when my brother Barry pulled in with his dirt bike. That settled that, dirt bike ride it was.
Tom’s bike
My brother Tom decided he’d like to go for a ride too, but his bike’s battery was dead from lack of use. Him and Barry tried to get it started by pulling it but it was too hard to pull and start, or to push and start it, so Tom stayed home.
He and Barry shot the bull for some time about stocks and finances before we were ready to take off for our ride.
Off for our ride
But eventually we took off and headed for the hills and rode around and around and up and down.
The view of Guerneville seemed a bit smoky from our overlook. 
Resting spot
After a good ride we needed a rest so we rode on up to our resting spot on the high point with this view.
After resting up, we rode around some more until we covered most of the roads at least once, then headed on home.
Barry took off for home and I got something to eat and a nap.
Chickens are off a bit
My chickens are off a bit today, a bit on the skittish side.
I let them out and they sorta just hung around.
A booboo
I forgot and left the gate open to their pen last night and they got attacked.
As near as I can tell a bobcat came in around 7:30 and killed two of them. It took one bird and left the other one.
I went back and looked at my cam in the chicken pen to see if I could see anything, mostly to see what got them.
The pic isn’t too good as the cam was focused on the rats, so it wasn’t aimed right for the critter as it went by so is a bit blurry. The rat is easier to see but the cat is on the other side of the fence on the right and hard to make out.
So tonight I made sure things were all closed up properly as the cat will likely come back.
Rat report
Well, I’m not sure about the rats and the plaster of Paris thing. Some of them don’t seem to be coming back for more which were the ones up in my attic, but I can still hear them in the attic. Other rats are eating the bait pretty much on and off all night long.
It’s hard to be sure
Right now, the thought is that stuff doesn’t kill rats, but to be surer, I plan to leave this bait out for a few weeks while I’m off on a trip and I’ll see what’s going on when I come back. If they are still at it, I plan to use some store bought poison on them and see what happens as they are feeding pretty freely on the bait right now, which means I shouldn’t have much problem slipping them the new bait.
This evening I took my van down to Guerneville to fill it up with gas for the upcoming trip, so that’s done.
Nice day.
Maybe leave the rat food outside the pen, let the cats take the rats. Win win.
If you resort to poison, the cats may die from eating poisoned rats :( I use plain old rat snap traps, baited with peanut butter. It takes a while, but eventually SNAP.
I hate rats.
Hi Patrick,
The one cat we have around here is smart enough not to mess with the nasty rats. :O) She does a good job on the mice through. What I’m doing is a sorta experiment on what will kill a rat. I’ll likely use the poison at least one time just to see if it works or not, then I’ll likely do the traps.
Bob