Another day, another season in the Hills. Yesterday the sun was shining, the air was full of spring promises and today is drizzly, grey and cold...I guess Mother nature is a woman and as such entitled to change her mind and her moods as often as she likes...
But no matter what the weather is like, there is something magical about living in the hills and i can't stop marveling at the beauty and peace all around me.
My bed of dutch bulbs, planted years ago by the old lady who owned the house, is in full bloom with white and yellow daffodils, blue irises; freesias will be next with the multi coloured tulips, hyacinths, lilies, and so many i don't have a name for.
The lemon trees are heavy with gorgeous fruit, the quince, peach, plum trees are in full blossom,the asparagus spears are shooting through the mulch and the birds are busying themselves with nesting material for their babies...
One dark note among this idyllic picture is that the lady rats are also nesting and looking for extra food for their brood...I guess it is the Yin and Yang of Nature...some critters we love and some we don't enjoy as much.
In the years i have been gardening, i have grown a healthy respect for all animals who share my space. You would have noticed that i said "who" not "which"...that is not a mistake ...I do feel that all animals are "beings" not "things" and as such deserve respect. Birds have found ways to sneak under my netting so many times that i now laugh when i discover one in my fruit trees because if they are that clever, they deserve a bit of a treat.
Rats are highly intelligent beings who will survive on this earth, long after we are gone...We all know that they are attracted to chook houses because of the grains...so in my coop, all grain feed is in  hermetically closed metal bins; all food is up in hangers, out of reach of rodents...the coop is made of impenetrable mesh on all sides, roof and floor...the coop is closed before dusk...so all should be fine in the chook world and yet almost every morning i find a hole in a corner of the floor and i smell the unmistakable rats' presence ...the little creatures have been sent to me to challenge my patience but also to show me their resilience and intelligence...if there is a wall and a closed door, all you need to do is dig a tunnel to get to the food...they somehow manage to sense where there is a weak spot and dig all the way to China until they get through...The chook pen now looks like fort Knox and i am determined to win that battle but the odds are against me...i am a civilised woman with a big brain but a limited mind compared to these wild critters with a small brain capacity but a powerful mind geared towards survival...
Stay tuned !!!
Find happiness in every minute of the day.

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