sappiness comes and goes around here

barn bedtime put me in a foul mood...there is nothing more difficult, (and dangerous,) than many thousands of pounds of enthusiastic but utterly stupid, uncooperative and hungry barn beasts between you and your never ending and almost fruitless search for their friggin missing food bowls.

hey who ya calling a 1,000 lbs of stupidity?

i had to choke back the enraged and frustrated screams for them to get the F#%$! out of my freaking way!!!!!.
from that point on..the bad mood was sunk in..everywhere i went i could have cheerfully strangled some uncooperative animal...lets start with those classy chicks who object to going to bed and make me keep hitting my head on the chicken coops cross beams.

the only kind and compassionate and totally respectful thing i did tonight was at the very end and i almost didn't do it either cuz i was in a bad mood.

when i went to feed chewie (and remove the two empty bowls from his pen)....there was this beat up old rat just coming up from below in the trees. he looked like shit...most of his hair was missing and he had bite wounds all over his sides.
he stopped a few feet away from me and just stared at me...not sure what he should do.

i walked past him and told him he looked like shit.
when i came back out to the barn yard...he was still there, looking totally out to lunch. but at least this time, he decided he should try to scurry off to the trees. he went several feet and then sat there looking at me.

i saw frodo sneaking up on him from behind so i stopped and thought it about it for a minute and tried to decide. there are too many rats around here...which is why the males are fighting. he obviously had gotten kicked out of all the prime rat living areas. frodo is supposed to kill rats but he usually doesn't. anyway..tonight it looked like he was going to..i was still trying to decide if i should interfer when frodo rushed up behind him....

and sniffed that rat's butt. the rat took off right past me and under the gate to the hay/shaving area. frodo stopped to take a pee right where that rat had been sitting. whatever..apparently he sucks at rat hunting..he is supposed to kill them not sniff their ass and then pee where they were sitting.

i left him to his weird cat/rat ritual thing and went up to close off the feed shed..somewhat glad i did not have to decide between saving the rat or letting him be killed.
while i was waiting for frodo to come back up and join me for the final walk out of the barn area...i saw that freaking shitty looking rat sitting next to the water barrel.

i went over to have a closer look...his wounds looked ugly and sore...his freaking eyes were all bleary...illness?...old age?..defeat? cuz life just totally sucked big time for him?

bloody bastard.

i got him a scoop of feed and a bowl of water and set them out close to him...he just watched me...when i moved away, he had something to eat.

i grabbed frodo and totally disgusted with my sappiness, we went to put the mp building to bed.

hmph! ALL rats are smelly and shitty looking. My "sniff & pee" act was just to SHOW you how I truly feel about them ... such lowly fithy vermin