When we stripped off the old roof of our meditation hall we disturbed a colony of woodrats. Woodrats are also known as pack rats and are notorious in the American west for their habit of collecting vast mounds of debris to make nests that often serve for generations of rodents. We also discovered that woodrats are fond of rearranging libraries, gnawing though computer cables, and keeping us awake at night with compulsive nocturnal activities in the roof.
When the family finally scurried out of the meditation hall roof some of them took up residence in the library for a while-hence our discovery of their penchant for rearranging books. When we finally got them all outside a couple of weeks later they made themselves known by moving hardware and tools about in the workshop and removing small logs from the woodpile.
I started to trap them. Every morning I would drive my captive rodent down our long dirt road and release him or her in the brush by the the banks of a dry river bed. A much more suitable habitat for a woodrat, I thought.
When I released the third rat I had caught (though I am now wondering if it wasn’t perhaps the same rat, caught a third time) instead of running into the nearby brush, he ran around me, darted across fifty yards of open ground and jumped up into the underside of my car. Damn!
I drove as fast as I could back along the dirt road, checking my rear view mirror. Hoping that the road was bumpy enough for my stow away to jump ship. But I didn’t see him.
So I parked the car at the far end of our parking lot, and re-set the trap right next to my car. The next morning I encountered a very angry rodent, caught in the grill of the trap, and squeaking at me in no uncertain terms. He couldn’t get free and I was not willing to risk getting bitten.
So I drove him back down the road and left him on a slope by a rock, imagining that he would either extricate himself or become lunch for a raven or a coyote.
Feeling bad for his plight, and a little guilty I returned in the evening.
I found that he was gone. Not only was he gone but the trap had been disassembled. Not only had the trap been disassembled, but the spring that closes the door was nowhere to be found. I mean nowhere! The door was lying a few feet away, but the spring, without which the whole thing was useless, had vanished. Apart from a few rocks, the ground was open for thirty yards all around. Not a sign of it. It had vanished along with my stubborn and irate little friend. Now I was re-evaluating my understanding of rodent intelligence, and reflecting on the value of furious determination.
