Pack Rat Park

 Not a park really...although maybe the pack rat's think of it that way. We humans call it a pasture. But pack rat nests are interesting. I'd never seen them in trees before.  Unfortunately, my first exposure to a pack rat nest was in my own garage (gross) but out in this pasture it didn't seem bad, it seemed intriguing.

 The Farmers were clearing the trees out of the pasture and since it was a beautiful Friday (a week ago, now) Levi and I took our lunches out there for a picnic with Ben. Levi thought the pack rat nests were gross.

 It was like a leafless jungle out in that pasture. My uncle was running the skid steer with the saw attachment while Ben pushed the trees into huge piles.

 The stumps got treated with this blue liquid to kill them. The blue was nasty, but the color was striking against the fresh cut tree stump.

 After lunch, Levi and I rode along with Ben to push trees around.

 Holy-moly it made me nervous. I had visions of trees bouncing back into the tractor windshield and decapitating us.  I know, where do such terrible thoughts even come from?! But, thankfully nothing happened except that huge trees were pushed into a huge pile. Period. Phew!!

 

 We actually saw one pack rat run through the pasture. Thankfully, that's as close as I've come to being eye-to-eye with one of those furry little creatures. I thought this nest was really rat packy cool looking...although it's still gross.

This past week, Ben went back to burn some of the piles of trees. He joked with me that we could eat BBQ pack rat.  He even mentioned that he had pack rat meat in the freezer to me on the phone the other morning (I was away for work meetings). The boys heard this and were searching the freezer until Ben told them he was just kidding. Do you think they actually wanted to eat pack rat meat or were they terrified at the thought?