Local trapper bags the big one!
And you thought it was all fun and games in the gallery.
"Something" had been eating (and digging up) the root of one of my columbines, right down into the ground. It had made a hole about a foot deep, eating away at the over an inch wide root.
We decided the hole was just way too big to be a mouse - not even a very large mouse! and the last snow we had we could see his little footprints going from the pond over to the mudroom, so we bought a rat trap and James baited it with a date and covered it so we wouldn't catch a cat. James got him the first night. We suspect "he" was a very pregnant female pack rat, in just beautiful condition.
You may note it does not have a skinny, naked tail like a Norway rat. It actually had little round ears, a fluffy tail, and looks not unlike a chinchilla, and we wish it had just stayed in the woods and lived its happy little life. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and pack rats stink badly, or their "leavings" do, they can chew and destroy things, and they just don't fit in with domestic life.