the case of the missing…
Acerola cherries!
It has been really wonderful picking the acerola, or Barbados, cherries from our tree in the front yard! Last year we had to fight the birds for them. This year it seems we’re fighting – each other? Something else?
We’ve gotten about four cherries a day a few days apart. Rudi hands them to me. I put them on my little table near where I work on the computer.
In the morning – they’re gone!
I accuse Rudi of taking them. He swears it wasn’t him.
The dog can’t reach. The bird can’t reach… and I am not eating them (they all needed to ripen a bit).
So – what is going on?
We’ve had a few clues.
1. Two mornings last week Rudi found the bird missing from his play stand. He searched the house, and found him standing happily on one of the run of the stools at the kitchen’s island. Why? He’s never gotten off his stand at night in his life.
2. Rudi found that something had eaten a little hole in one of the screens in our kitchen…
3. Rudi also found what might be an unidentifiable poop under the stove in the kitchen.
Rudi is heading out for a few traps today. I won’t show you those photos, but I will let you know what we learn. We’ve lost eight cherries, and now Rudi is hiding them at night so they have ripening time. 🙂
(Will they ripen if they go in and out, in and out of the fridge?)
Such are the mysteries in paradise!
My gratefuls – That our tree produces cherries often, so we had enough to share a little. That good friends Justin, Amanda and Journey came by today to say hello and to scratch the bird. That I got some sleep in the daytime, making up for the sleep I lost last night. That Brigitte is home safely now for a while and doesn’t have to brave those choppy seas!
meandering minds... 
You need a cat!!! Just kidding!
Ahh, the dreaded R word… the secret to never having any in the house is to never leave anything eatable on the counters at night. I had to learn this the hard way, several times.
Wishing you good hunting…make sure you don’t catch Timou though!! Are you sure it wasn’t him who ate the cherries?
You could put them in the bathroom at night and close the door, don’t think fruit ripens in the fridge.
Have a super duper R-less day!
Yup – you’ve got bankers – no rats! maybe a mouse. Last August, our son ( who was on Cat and said he was fastidious and didn’t leave any food around, came home, turned on the light and a rat was drinking out of my kitchen sink. GAG! So on our trip down, we brought the entire arsenal with us – big traps, and sorry to the peta members out there, heavy duty poison that only farmers here can get. Set the traps with cheese, laid out the poison in pieces of pipe so visiting pets can’t get at it. Well the cheese is gone, traps off, and poison gone but no rat. This went on the entire time. The trap even moved so realized that we were dealing with a rodent on steroids. Found the rat bait behind our fridge – twice. Not even a bite out of it, maybe saving it for a rainy day. We have no idea how the rat got in our house but sure hope it left the same way. When we returned in September no evidence ( poop) and again this past trip – nothing. Our neighbours put down bait in their garage and had a dead rat – hopefully it was our visitor.
Other friends ( Canadians) had their screens eaten so the rats could get in. The joys of living in paradise!
Anyway, I am an animal lover but I HATE rats!
PS. I ordered passion fruit seeds yesterday from tradewind seeds in California and will take them down with me in December. We planted a Acerola cherry tree last week, we get plants sent over on the mailboat from RockyFarms in Nassau – it even had little cherries on it.
Eeek! Mice!
Want to loan me a cat, Brigitte?
We can’t figure out how or why Timou would have climbed down his stand and then up onto the loveseat and across the arm to get to the little side table… or onto the coffee table. He is not a climber and he can’t fly…
I don’t think the cherries will ripen in the fridge either. Oh well, we will see what Rudi can catch!
Yum on you having a nice, new acerola! I am glad. And Colyn has supposedly picked out our new passion fruit in Nassau and it is on a ship heading north here with other plants he found worthwhile. I hope the seeds work well.
And your visitor sounds pretty bright – and rats are bright. I love rats, I have to say. I don’t know about the wild variety here, but our friend Bobby just reported to Rudi that when he took out our golf cart for cleaning and an oil change before we came home – there was a rat nest in it! Okay, so rat sounds logical. And do I want to meet it? Sort of. But since Rudi has been closing the windows to the kitchen area at night it seems to have taken care of the cherry-stealing. Did you know rats are so like humans, they don’t make their own Vitamin C so they search it out? Yum!
Or better, Munira – a rat!
I do love rats. More than mice, for sure!
I have so many rat stories… won’t bore you with it. You are right, they are very smart. These are tree rats, and measure about 16 to 17″ from nose to tail. When we first came to Tilloo 20 years ago the rat population was huge here, and that was the reason we got a cat.
Some tips: Make sure it can’t get water…close the door to the toilet and bathrooms, wipe your sinks dry. They can live without food for a while, but must have water to live. Try peanut butter on the trap. Sometimes gluetraps work. These rats like all seeds and fruit – so put them away at night.
I doubt if this one found the hole in the screen to get out and is probably still in your house – you will never know he’s there.
I am not trying to scare you, but Timou was afraid, these are big animals and it probably tried to attack the bird – the rat surely ate some of his food too….oh, Timou has to have water. But can he sleep in your bedroom? With the door shut?
I may think of more things we did or didn’t do before Janie moved in with all of her cats …we have heard of them eating kittens. So make sure that Timou is safe.
And we have no mice in these islands…
I didn’t know that, Brigitte! I guess we go for the big animals instead!
Interesting!
Rudi thinks it made the hole in the screen getting IN, not out.
Not sure how it would have gotten in otherwise.
Interesting stuff though! We always use peanut butter in traps, so that is one check.
But seeds and food and water – in the dish for Truffles in the kitchen and for the bird – yes, hanging right there in his cage.
He won’t sleep if he’s in the bedroom with us… So we will have to come up with something.
Thanks Brigitte!
Yes, the rat gnawed a hole in the screen and then came in through that hole. But I have never seen one go out that way, though. He may be still in your house – unless you have the doors always open and he could get out that way.
The water and food bowls of the animals are definitely presenting a problem — hope you catch him very soon! And poison is so bad…it goes down the food chain – a dog or cat find the dead rat, they die in excruciating pain, small bugs eat it, and on and on it goes. But I guess you have to do what you have to do.
Troy said the rat would pee a little on the entry point so he can find it to use as as exit. But that if we leave that window open the partner would show up too!
So no poison, never! And we will continue to set the trap unless Troy has other ideas. It went off last night around midnight and was LOUD, but nothing was in it in the morning.