With this sudden bout of cold weather, nature seems to have moved into our house.  This weekend had lows below freezing with snow flurries eddying over the asphalt and getting tucked under the wilted spring grass in the sprawling abandonment.

These crazy temperatures froze the little pool – the ice turned opaque and white in the shallows and thick and black in the deeper areas, preserving the marine garbage as if in glass. It is too cold to take Tristen outside, so I am writing from my back porch (huddled over my iPad and clutching a quickly cooling cup of coffee).  The snow flurries stick to the still-green wild strawberry leaves, dandelions, grasses and skunk cabbage camouflaging the half broken plastic bin by our fence.

This morning as I was in the bathroom I heard crunching coming from our cats’ food bowl.  I looked over and saw no cats.  However, the crunching continued. I put down my eye liner and went out into the hall to investigate. Behind the metal bowls, perched on the corner of an old picture frame was a big brown rat.  A ninja rat. As soon as I made eye contact with him, he disappeared – backing down the frame, scurrying between the little cabinet for the cats’ food and the wall, into our kitchen, behind a shelf then behind our refrigerator where I lost the sound of his scurrying.

This was the second time in twenty-four hours that I have heard him scurrying to and from the cats’ food bowl.  Last night this same rat or one of his pals made a mad dash from the bowl passed both cats and into the basement.

We had a rat around this time last year too. They come in out of the abandonment.  Climb right up our laundry drainage pipe and squeeze through the drain.  They never stay. Just come in for a few mouthfuls of food. Maybe they get a kick out of teasing our cats. Insulating them. Eating directly out of their food bowl. Only letting them catch a whiff of their scent or a glimpse of their tales. Never letting them get even close.  

The cold has also gifted us with a noisy roommate (or three) – something has moved into the space above our bathroom.  They seem to be living inside the roof.  We can hear them moving around. Thumping around.  Sometimes squeaking. After a few late-night discussions over scotch-on-the-rocks, my husband and I have ruled out the raccoons (far too clumsy, we would have heard their claws as they climbed the gutter or the siding).  It could be the rats. Or maybe the skunk scaled the grape vine and burrowed under the shingles. Or the opossum we had around last summer with a litter of kits.