Rodent in the house!

Maybe I embellished that a little bit, it was actually a Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) in the garage. Here's how it happened. I pulled into the garage Friday night, and left the overhead door open (oops!) In the front of the garage, we had a bag nearly full of leaves and yard waste. Charmaine arrived home after me, and closed the overhead door. Next morning, when we left for the grocery store, I noticed that the bag had a hole torn in it, and some of the contents were spilled onto the floor. "Probably a mouse or chipmunk," I thought. I put the torn bag and contents into a new bag, and off we went. 45 minutes later, as we're unloading groceries, and leaving the door into the mudroom open, I notice that the 'double bagged' yard waste was now ripped open. "Bigger than a mouse," I surmised. That's when Charmaine noticed the foot-long beast with a foot-long skinny tail (that rules out a squirrel) huddled under the rototiller.

Unable to "frighten out" the poor critter, we moved to plan b, removing things from the garage so there would be no place to hide. Cars were backed out first, then the trash can and wheelbarrow. "We should call Mr. X (our neighbor)" "Yes!" we both screamed. Mr. X knows about everything, including critters.

In a flash he was in our garage, reaching for the muskrat with his bare hand. "Don't!" yelled Mrs. X, fearing a rabid bite or what not, so Mr. X grabs a broom and goes after it like he's on ice playing for the Stanley Cup. The poor thing waddled towards the door and was then whacked by Mr. X, slapshot style, down the sidewalk. Not being the brightest of beasts, or hell-bent on making a nest, she turned around and started towards the garage door again. I grabbed a snow shovel to block, Mr. X raised his broom, Charmaine closed the garage door. Under her car our Muskrat scampered, then prodded by the broom handle, took shelter under my car.

Time for some new players in our drama. Neighbors from down the street were walking their giant golden retriever. "A-ha!" I exclaimed, "the hunt is afoot." Sam, the dog, had other things on his mind, and took no interest what-so-ever in the rodent, not even giving us the satisfaction of a 'bark bark' or two.

To break this impasse, Charmaine backs her car out into the street, leaving the Muskrat stranded under my ride. Slowly I backed out, not wanting a squashed road-kill mess to clean up, slowly the creature backed up with me. Once in the street, Muskrat still under me, I accelerated away, with our new friend waddling down the curb, prodded by Mr. X's broom (he's unrelenting.)

Muskrat Susie, or Sam, took shelter under another neighbor's van, and so we headed back to our domicile, needing to replace all the contents now on the driveway. It was at this point I realized I should have grabbed my camera first, and captured the entire event for posterity, or at least You-Tube, but alas, all I can muster is the drawing above. Here is a nice video of the song Muskrat Love, acted out by "Star Wars" characters.