My compost bin is falling apart. It is an Aerobin, the extra expensive type that is vermin proof, with the internal chimney which, when it is working, keeps everything cooking and sweet without the need for turning.
For nearly eight years it has served me well, but now it is sagging at the seams. The rats can get in, and the compost falls out.
Last weekend, in a frenzy of gardening in preparation for the autumn flush, I put on my oldest gardening trousers and took the bin apart, digging out the compost ready for the garden bed. I intended to rebuild the compost bin once it was empty.
I was half way through the job when a turn of the shovel brought down a nest of half a dozen tiny baby rats – pink and hairless, with blind bulbous heads straining for a teat.
A very fat mother rat ran out under my feet a moment later.
What to do?
Living in the inner suburbs, and right next to a McDonald’s restaurant, I have long ago overcome my reservations about laying out rat bait. Either one does it, or one is overrun. But – these were babies, right in front of me. And mother had gone.
Some months ago I cooked dinner for a friend who is a hard-line vegan. I find such meals a challenge. Vegetarian is easy. We often have meatless meals. But this time I found myself constantly wanting to reach for the forbidden. Fish sauce. Chicken stock. Cream and milk. All of it, as my friend would say, involving death and exploitation.
We got through with garlic mushrooms (minus the parmesan) and pea soup (on vegetable stock) with good bread and cream on the side for those who wanted to add it. When it came to desert, I offered fruit with honey, only to find that this product of bees is also off the vegan list.
“But bees make honey anyway, don’t they?” I asked, and got a small talk on the cruelty of stealing it from them, smoking the bees – all the nastiness of honey factory farming. A few days later my friend sent links to websites that backed her up.
I was impressed, even awed, by her consistency.
And now I, the honey-eater, stood shovel in hand over the hairless baby rats. I knew I couldn’t raise them, and of course I didn’t really want to. I try to get rid of rats. I wasn’t sure if the mother would come back if I simply left them. And even if she did, why would I preserve the rats when I also laid rat bait?
I thought about burying them in the garden with the compost – but burying them alive was surely not a kindness. It was cowardice.
I went inside and made a cup of tea and drank it slowly, watching from the window, not knowing if I was hoping for mother rat to come back. She didn’t.
After half an hour I went back out and saw the little babies still straining blindly. I stood transfixed. It was cruel to leave them like that.
I brought the shovel down on them – once, twice, thrice – and killed them outright, before shoveling the compost on the garden.
That night I didn’t sleep.
And the next day I attempted to rebuild the compost bin so that it didn’t bulge and sag, so that it would once again be ratproof. It hasn’t worked. Today I bought gaffer tape, hoping to be able to stick it together. If this fails, and I think it will, I will need to buy another bin.
