It’s Tuesday, School is done and now the fun begins! The fun of juggling time between dinosaur games and playing school. Yes, now that Princess Nagger is finished with school, she wants to play school. So I’ll try to be a good student. I can’t promise anything, though.
But being that it’s Tuesday, it’s time once again for Random Tuesday Thoughts, hosted by none other than the Super Mom (aka The Un-Mom) Keely. You wouldn’t think from this fugly button:
that she would create a cute image for me to work my magic off of in the rest of the design process for my blog. But she did. See it up there in the header? Here, you can have a closer look:
Oh yeah! I’m stylin’ now! Thanks to the combined efforts of Keely with her drawing magic, Ash (Shades of Blue and Green) for dreaming up the winning name, and Jen (Sprite’s Keeper) who came up with the tagline. Mojo’s Nemesis is in the house! And now let’s get on with the Randomness, because I need to do some catching up after burying my head in designing all weekend and not getting around to very many blogs in the process!
We actually had a Tornado Warning on Sunday – poor Princess Nagger was very worried that our house would blow away (I guess I shouldn’t have insisted she watch The Wizard of Oz with me a couple of months ago…) But her biggest worry? Was that her buddy Spike and her sandbox would be blown away.
Luckily the Tornado Watch was called off so Princess Nagger could stop worrying.
This weekend was an active critter weekend – apparently the rat that is living under the brick patio apparently thought the thorny rose stems and dead flowers I shoved down a few of the holes were gifts. Because she got busy and drilled a bunch more holes. We saw two – a big one and a smaller one. Not sure if it was a husband/wife duo or mother/child duo. But it’s still two too many. So hubby set up the trap under the bird feeder – figuring we didn’t need to put bait in it, because the rats have been eating the fallen bird seed.
It worked like a charm. Well, after a false start – Saturday morning the trap had been tripped, but didn’t catch anything. So Princess Nagger and I figured out how to reset it and waited. And waited. And waited. Sunday morning we woke up to the bigger of the two rats caught in the trap. Take that, sucker.
That thing was mean! He kept launching himself at the side of the cage when I was taking pictures. I admit, I shrieked a little the first time and back away. For all I knew he had chewed himself a trap door in the cage and was waiting for someone like me to get close enough to bust out and latch onto my face. When I realized he wasn’t that smart of a rat, I took pictures paparazzi style.
Then of course the hubby and I had no idea how to get rid of it. Take it out to some random field and set it free? Chances are it’d round up an army of rats for revenge. So the neighbor kid came over and offered to dispose of it for us. We were grateful. Problem solved, big rat gone. We saw the smaller rat inspecting the cage while the other one was caught, so hubby tagged it in the butt with his pellet gun. We haven’t seen that one since. Hopefully the big rat told him to run as fast and as far away as possible. We have the cage set back up just in case he brings back reinforcements, though.
We also discovered this weekend that we have a bullfrog in our pond. Too bad he wasn’t bigger, he probably would have made a snack of the rats. I had no idea (until this weekend) that bullfrogs eat mice and other frogs and fish and anything they feel like. Princess Nagger refers to him as a ‘Bully Frog’ because he ate one of the wild birds.
I thought he had something in his mouth – and I was right. Skip the next image if seeing a bullfrog with a bird in its mouth grosses you out.
Ready?
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Final warning!
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Here it is:
Hubby and his dad visited a house a couple of weeks ago he lived in when he was 6 years old – it’s been sitting vacant for over a year waiting for the developers who bought it to knock it down and build either industrial or a parking lot. He went back this past weekend and dug up some plants that he and his dad had planted years ago and brought them back to plant in our yard.
The in-ground swimming pool his dad had put in oh so long ago is sadly neglected, the cover is long gone and someone tried to cover it with plywood at some point, which has rotted and mostly fallen into the pool. Hubby snagged some tadpoles from the pool and brought them back to our pond (though they were more tadpole-ish a week ago, when he went back to get them, they were mostly frog-ish):
I’m sure the Bully Frog probably thinks he scored with some delectable dinnertime fare. Hopefully some of them will manage to elude the Bully Frog – hubby counted 32 of them. I’ll keep you posted.
And now, the weekly picture of the pond:
Princess Nagger was having fun watching the tadpoles make their way from the top of the stream into the pond. Ribbit!
Edited to add:
In case you’re not one to click over to the reviews and giveaways, I wanted to add this little video Princess Nagger did just because it’s funny. That’ll save you the clickage:
Head over and visit Keely at The Un-Mom for some fun randomness and get your own Random on!
I am literally phobic of rodents. PHOBIC. I had to skip over BOTH photos. I have had mice before and I swear I just wanted to move.
WOW! you really have a jungle there now!
I am totally jealous of your pond…it’s gorgeous! We dissected bullfrogs in high school but they were HUGE things…about 5 pounds each. I started following you the other day but something was freaky and you wouldn’t show up on my dashboard…I guess that’s fixed now because there you were this morning…yay!
Kathy would like you to read ..An open letter to myself that everyone is allowed to read
Love the new look.
Love the murderous froggy.
tulpen would like you to read ..Heavy To Light
Your rat reminded me of the fact that I had to throw out our AC cover (aka: grill cover) a few weeks back because it had holes in it. Definitely looked like mice or rats had been chewing on it and it smelled like a rodent cage after I took the cover off. Perhaps next winter I will put some poison there to stop them from eating the cover.
Thanks for stopping by and for your randomness,
Christopher (AKA: CaJoh) would like you to read ..RTT: Bites & Series
Princess Nagger has the killer sales technique down!
That rat is naaaaaaaaaasty, as is the bird in the frog’s mouth. Your house is quite the center of activity these days.
blueviolet would like you to read ..Eugene and Betty
I remember those days, the kids off school and they want to play school! I always had plenty of butcher block paper on rolls for them to draw and paint at an easel. I actually liked the playing school part. Your pond is so lovely.
TechnoBabe would like you to read ..Learning More About Each Other Online
I’m with blueviolet – PN has some mad sales skillz! Of course the fact that she’s so stinkin’ adorable doesn’t hurt either.
I hope some of the tadpoles manage to escape Bully Frog (which, btw, made me literally LOL), but I love the pic of him with the feathers sticking out of his mouth!
I had no idea bullfrogs ate birds and stuff!
That rat looks disgusting. I hate rats.
PN has a great pitch! And she’s so cute!
Have a great day.
Raven would like you to read ..Random Randomizing
Love your pond. Frogs and all. Wish we could pull off something like that here but the water would all evaporate away. Love the new look, it’s awesome!
VandyJ would like you to read ..Random Tuesday Toughts
Ugh, that rat thing would be enough for me to completely lose it. We had a mouse problem in February, and we never caught it but the thing hasn’t made an appearance in months. Those things just freak me out…yuck!
Thanks for stopping by!
That frog is horrifying! Toads and frogs are the only thing on the planet that I’m afraid off. Seriously – I would DIE if that thing lived near my house. I’ve also told my husband those things are man eaters and now you’ve shown proof – if they can eat a bird, they can get me too.
Thanks for following my blog. I’m your newest follower too…
Travel Dive Girl would like you to read ..Random Tuesday Thoughts – Rum, Delivery Guys, Oceans, OCD
It’s bull frog mating season (quit laughing) and they are making so much noise around here! I love your post and Nagger is getting so big 🙂
Harriet would like you to read ..How to Get a Family Member to Stop Leaving Clothes Around
Tell me you had superzoom on that cam..or that is by far not only the ugliest rat but the biggest. ICK!!!!!!!!!!!
Your daught is just too darling though. Love the pics and love her little sand animal box.
JennyMac would like you to read ..Whatcha got in the bag, baby?
isnt it funny, rats are gross…but look so cute 😉
That Bully Frog is huge! I didn’t know they could eat birds. Holy cows!
Mama Badger would like you to read ..Random Tuesday Thoughts
Have you ever seen the movie The Secret of Nimh? The rats live in the rose bush and love the thorns.
Your pond has really grown in, looking good!
Princess Nagger is on the right track with her name for the frog. He is a bully and chances are you won’t have any frogs to watch. He will eat them all. Bully frog should go bye bye like the rat.
Rats are nasty. We got one in a giant sized mouse trap once, it was disgusting. Had hubby dispose of it after I found the thing snapped in half. So glad we haven’t had any more since.
Rats are nasty. Bullfrogs? More my speed…
frogmama would like you to read ..Random Tuesday Thoughts: Duckjerk!
The new blog digs are fantastic.
Also, I had no idea bull frogs could take a bird out. I would’ve liked to see that capture in HD slow mo…Maybe you could train it to devour rats and save yourself some aggravation. Yuck. Those rat tails freak me out for some reason.
And the PN ring pop commercial was adorable. She’s just as animated and spunky as I imagined her from your posts. 😉
Happy Tuesday.
Hey! Love the new look. I thought the rat was kinda cute, but then we’ve had them as pets before, so I may not be an unbiased judge.
Stacy would like you to read ..RTT – politics, puppies, and pinheads
Your daughter is just too precious, and she’s a natural for commercial ads. Did you ever think of bringing her in for a try out? You really should. As far as your pond, tell me does it draw insects? I love the pond, it’s really gorgeous, but I’m allergic to small insect bites, so I’m afraid we couldn’t do that in our yard although we do have the room. Well, off to enter your ring pops for the grandkids. Your princess has totally convinced me!
Xmasdolly would like you to read ..CD Baby’s "In the Beginning…" Review/Give-Away!
As a kid I used to bring home tadpoles and salamanders and turtles and…well you get the picture, I don’t think my mother liked it that much though.
BTW, your site is smoking hot! Very nicely done.
The Urban Cowboy would like you to read ..5 Reasons Why Being Sick Sucks for Everyone Else
Thanks for visiting my blog! That’s a great line up of random events. I love the photos. The story about bully frog is great too. These are the odd things about nature you don’t learn in school! We live next to a pond and get to watch the graceful white heron gulp down baby ducks! It’s horrible! I try to chase them off but they know a quick lunch and will not be deterred.
Rachel M would like you to read ..Random Tuesday Thoughts
Yuck for the rats. It didn’t sick me out to see the picture of that and even though animals eating other ones don’t bother me I definitely shuddered when I saw the frog with the bird in its mouth.
I can’t get the video of PN to play:( It says to try back later…so I will. That bullfrog eating a bird pretty much ruined any thoughts of breakfast.
Rachele would like you to read ..Redwood Creek Malbec