Ratus ratus.

Some years ago I watched a movie about a family in a house that was overrun by a mouse. The story was very humorous and concentrated on the familys efforts and obsession to rid themselves of the rodent.

I have become that movie.  The aforementioned rodent in my movie is the rat what lives in my engine bay.  I have decided the human race are not at all the smartest beings on the planet as Mr Rat has outwitted me at every turn.

I am now obsessed with this rodent and his intended annihilation.  I found his nest on the top of the engine behind the turbocharger next to the heater blower. I used a pressure jet to blow it away, then I dowsed the engine with WD40 so as to make it real smelly in there. Then I got some cotton buds soaked in peppermint oil, placed inside some tights strung about the engine block. They hate peppermint apparently.

I then put two huge rat traps laced with peanut butter, jam and some chocolate, one on top of the front wheel, the other inside the engine bay on top of one of the batterys.

I have connected the engine heater so its nice and cosy which will keep him active and hopefully alert enough to smell the bait. In the morning I hope to find one rat with a broken neck. Heres the obsession bit. I cant help myself but every hour or so I have to go out to check the traps, problem there is its minus 14c and 2-3 ft of snow which means I have to dress as Scott of the Antarctic each time.......Im exhausted. Meanwhile, Mr Rat is probably nice and cosy courtesy of my engine heater watching my every move with a sickly rat like grin on his face!

Looking forward to posting a photo of a dead rat in the morning.

Guns don't kill.......

I mentioned to an RCMP officer that being so close to the US border I felt a tiny bit vulnerable being unarmed amongst so many gun carrying crazy Americans. He suggested I go out and buy a 9mm, couple of clips and a box of shells. You don't have to carry it, just keep it close by.  Good advice I thought but still not feeling much more secure than before.

Canada Facts.

Canada, being the second largest country in the world boasts 7500 police officers attached to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the country's national police force. If you take into account all the local provincial forces, the total number of police officers rises to just under 70,000.  Now, by comparison, England, Wales & N. Ireland, total number of serving police officers, not including PCSOs stands at over 130,000. Maybe Dave has a point?

Mr Rat at Christmas

Heres a funny thing. Because the ambient air temperature is rather low at this location at this time of year, its common practice to "plug" ones motor vehicle into the mains overnight as most Canadian vehicles are built with a heating element into the engine block, this prevents engine coolant freezing also makes starting much easier.            So thats all good on the face of it, easy starting plus the heater is almost instantly pumping out the hot stuff.

What can go wrong?  Can the vehicle catch fire?  No, because the heating element is housed within the engine water jacket and nowhere near anything combustible.

Does this system use huge amounts of power?  No, because the system is governed by a thermostatic switch which holds the heat to somewhere just above freezing point.

The only problem I saw up until today was that I might drive away having forgotten to disconnect the power cable, but thats the reason I bought a bright orange power cable.

Anyway, back to what can go wrong.  Rodents, rats to be precise.  This morning, as usual, I started the truck, disconnected the heating cable and moved about 10 feet when I saw a big black rat run from beneath my truck across the snow and dived underneath my neighbours car!  So what?  I got out and followed its tracks in the snow realising the tracks started from my truck ending at next doors car but nowhere could I find any tracks leading TO my truck.  

So I leave for the day and tell someone about Mr Rat, he said rats are attracted to heated cars and make a nest in the warm engine bay.  I get home thinking maybe best not plug in tonight so Mr Rat will get the cold shoulder, however, later this evening I saw rat tracks in the snow from my neighbours unused car back to mine, being recently warmed. He's back!

Now I have a problem.  It was also explained to me that once Mr Rat finds a suitable warm habitat he will begin to look for things to eat, such as cables, wiring etc.

The plan now is to not plug the heating cable in, or on. Then I got an "anti mosquito" coil which once lit will burn slowly emitting toxic smoke and placed under the engine hoping Mr Rat will either leave or choke to death. Either way, he might realise my truck is not a rat hotel. So tomorrow, Christmas day, my engine will be so cold he will have left for Arizona or he has been poisoned by smoke or my truck will have caught fire, either by short circuited cable munching or anti mosquito coil induced heat.

Usually on Christmas eve, I would have gone to the pub, arrived home too late but in time to be berated for being too late and drunk. This year I battle a rat!

Funny old world innit.   Merry Christmas.

Its a wonderful life.

"Its a wonderful life" is one of those classic movies always shown at Christmas time to make us all feel warm and smug about the human race and all the people we have around us.   I admit to having never watched this particular film until last year when I bought the DVD.  Apart from having an adoration of the persona and acting skills of James Stewart, I really did not see the point of the plot but felt slightly frustrated at the slow pace and direction of the story.  Nevertheless, my point is this.  It is a wonderful life and however it treats you, you are very lucky to be here able to be reading this.

Apart from a wonderful life I have a wonderful friend. I haven't seen him for "too long" but thats ok. I know where he is and what he does.  

I think he also appreciates it might be a wonderful life by what happened to him some years back.

Twas a stag party down west in Penzance, don't know the details other than it was by rail and with return tickets. I was not there as I was upholding the law in London.  Anyway, at the end of the night all those involved boarded the last train to London which luckily was scheduled to stop at Truro. Somewhere between Penzance and Truro our hero, possibly feeling faint from excess alcohol, needed air. 

Having imagined him lowering one of those window things, I fully understand his thought process. "Window open, must climb out".  Long story shortened, he climbed out and pulled himself up onto the roof of this HS 125 speeding through the Cornish countryside.  Apparently, as the train left Camborne or Redruth an eagle eyed signalman spotted him grinning sitting atop.

A call to the British Transport Police was made and a "Train block" was put into place at Truro.

Now, our hero getting a bit bored and probably rather cold, managed to slide back into the corridor just before being met by BTPs finest on the platform.

The police selected him from the rest of the crew by simple deduction. He was the only one with a diesel fume blackened face and swept back hair.  It was brought to his attention had he not decided to desist in his train surf he would have been introduced to the Bucks Head tunnel shortly after leaving Truro. The tunnel has a seven inch clearance!

He pointed out his destination was always Truro so no problem and certainly no offence. It was late at night, the cop wanted to go home................

Quite how he managed to avoid being arrested for whatever, is still niggling me. Maybe a story for another time.  My point is, and maybe I should seek confirmation here, my friend must surely consider this life really is a wonderful life.                         But I digress...........

For Lyn, Tuesday night is yoga night.  For me, Tuesday night is whatever I want night and last Tuesday was Shepherds pie night...simple pleasures!    The pie was pre cooked, frozen and microwaved with microwaved frozen peas and gravy.

Sitting in front of the TV Im tucking into my pie when Im aware of something irritating the back of my throat, not a problem and sorted with a quick cough.

Shovelling in the pie as a steam engine stoker might work, I feel the throat thing again so after a swallow of pie I manage a cough or two but this time nothing feels right. I tried to take a deep breath in order to produce a cough of massive proportions but as I drew in something clicked in my throat stopping the air entering my lungs. That was the most horrible thing I can remember happening to me, unable to draw breath.  

Im not one to panic easily and so sat back down for a review of what was happening.

For 10 or 15 minutes I sat quietly considering my options. Gradually unable to breathe properly I realised I was alone, no phone to call for help.  The human brain is a fantastic organ, capable of self preservation. Mine was searching for a solution to prevent it from dying. It dug deep and found a memory of a course I had attended 25 years ago when I was mentored by a Major of the SAS on a bodyguard course when I was with the Met. Apart from sticking ones hands into gunshot wounds to clamp leaky arteries and slamming biro pens into someones throat to create an airway he mentioned that should one suffer an obstruction to ones airway, without another person to assist with a Heimlich Manoeuvre, one might consider inverting ones self and coughing hard.

Hats off to the Major.  With little breath left, I managed a headstand and coughed up a solitary pea!

 So I really do mean it when I say, Its a wonderful life!

 

Seedlings to saplings.

So I met Harry.  Harry is a hippy type Canadian, he has the biggest tobacco stained  moustache I have ever seen, he's about fifty and does a yoga class with Lyn.   When Harry is not practising yoga or dancing with his partner Dixie he is working for an outfit providing the government with fir and Douglas pine saplings for the re-forestation program here in Canada.

I found the whole thing fascinating.  For many years the government have been selling square kilometres of forest to loggers to feed the huge demand for timber without thinking of the consequences.  So the previous government changed the rules a bit to make sure that for every mature tree cut down, 3 new saplings must be planted.  This ruling paved the way for a new industry and this particular outfit supplies 18 million saplings per year.

Harry painted a picture of a group of caring conservationists that lovingly nurture these saplings from seedlings, carefully monitoring their progress until they are ready to be sent out into the bush for planting.  "You should get involved man" he told me. 

I like the sound of this I thought and signed up for a month of part time nurturing, also they pay $100 per day!

What I saw at 7am in the cold dark morning was slightly different from the image I brought with me.

Maria, the 5ft Philippino boss lady gave me a pair of gloves and took me into a huge hangar like building full of conveyor belts and noisy machinery. Drowning out all the mechanical din was Sun FM at a million decibels deafening all the estimated 80 or so workers.  

Let me briefly go through the process of a sapling.  Seedlings are planted in polystyrene trays containing 60 small pots of peat. They are lined up outside for 18 months by which time they are no longer seedlings but saplings about 4 inches high.

In November the trays are fed into the factory along a conveyor belt until the trays are turned onto their side when a machine brutally punches out the peat and sapling onto another belt. They are then fed to many different belts until they find a person who will grade, trim or reject.  The next person will take 10 saplings on their sides and build a pyramid now known as a cluster so that the next person at the end of the belt can pick up the cluster and wrap the earthy end in selothane, heat seal the join and place onto another belt for packing into boxes.

My first job was to wrap clusters of saplings for which Maria gave me about 4 minutes instruction. Easy enough, grab a cluster from the belt, place on a steel tray, wrap in selothane 3 times, drop onto the heated tray to seal and drop onto the next belt. No problem....except they come down the belt every 6 seconds! If I miss one it goes in the bin and everyone cheers.....I had quite a few cheers.  Anyway, after 2 hours I got almost up to speed with some help from the two lovely ladies grading, trimming and rejecting. They watched me struggle and somehow held back a few clusters to give me some space.  Just when I thought I cracked it, Maria told me to swap with one of the lovely ladies and build sapling clusters.  So Im now facing a conveyor belt watching mini trees hurtling past me, all I have to do is arrange them pyramid style, 4 at the bottom then 3 then 2 and one on top.  All went well for a while until my left arm went all tight and my thumb locked into my palm, I had prise it back 4 times. Then I began to feel a bit hot so I removed my coat and hat. My legs began to tremble and sweat was dripping from my nose and I was about to throw up when one of the lovely ladies pushed me back from the belt. It seems vertigo caused by the moving belt had hit me hard. After a short spell in the cold fresh air and a glass of water I was back on the wrapping, away from the nasty belt.

Apparently most people are affected by this but get used to it, the thumb thing I put down to the fact my left arm is not used to such repetitive action and the tendon attached to my thumb protested and went on strike.

I managed to complete the shift and at 4.30 staggered exhausted into the truck and drove slowly home. In my time I have worked on building sites, underground in a tin mine, done lots of long police shifts through the night but I have never felt quite so tired and as empty as I did that evening.  The next day was my birthday and for the best birthday present ever, Lyn called the factory to say I had quit!

Lyn also presented me with a large bottle of Laphroaig whisky and a Chinese dinner. I slept soundly that night!

Sorry but no photos for this one.