Oxen Welcome!

Do you know what today is? It's the Chinese New Year! Usually we don't pay too much attention to this foreign holiday, but now that Glen has many Chinese colleagues we pay a little more attention...or at least enjoy the fact that he won't have any late night conference calls all week.

Although we don't usually celebrate or anything, this year I'm doing a little happy dance to usher in the new year! We are SO done with the year of the rat! SO, so, so glad that it's over and that it will be another 12 years before it comes again!

Why do I care?
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Illustration A: Christmas present caught in sticky mouse trap.

After mice got into our attic and ruined all of our good Christmas present hiding places...we were a little grossed out, but were still quite thankful that it was only in our attic.

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Illustration B: Squirrel chewing a hole in our kitchen window screen. Several more squirrels were simultaneously clawing and chewing on various other screens around our house.
When squirrels started climbing the sides of our house and chewing holes in our screens I was perturbed!

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Illustration C: Our garage door AFTER Glen had to replace the damaged panel.
Then when rats chewed two holes THROUGH our garage door and made themselves a nest in a bag of potting soil and defiled our garage with their filth I was officially enraged!

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All this in one autumn when we've never had any prior rodent issues in the 7+ years we've lived in this house.

So, what's going on? Well it turns out that in addition (or maybe because of it?) to it being the year of the rat that there's also a mysterious acorn shortage that has plagued our area and driven these rodents to desperate measures. You can read all about it here. While somewhat sympathetic to their drive for survival I am not happy that they've taken to defiling/destroying our property to do it!

And that is why I say good riddance to the year of the rat and welcome oxen!!!!!

I'm feeling so much better about this whole year of the ox....

...as long as there's not some mysterious ox food shortage that drives them to ram people's cars and stampede their gardens, then I think we're going to get along just fine!

Although, knowing my luck I should probably be prepared...does anyone know where we can buy an ox trap?