Reading time: 2.34

607 words

Hey Reader,

Aaaaaaand they’re off! Up out of the hole, skedaddle across the flagstones, watch the back end around that corner WOOOOAAHHHHHHHH that was close, nice use of the racing line, around the brick chicane, between the feeder legs, and a big leap into the trough.

Another head pops up out of the hole: quick look left and right, all clear, slightly more steady on this run, aaaaaaand into the trough!

Dagnammit. We have rats.

Not in the house; in the chicken coop. I mean, we live in the country and we have chickens — rats are inevitable.

(As an aside, did you know that there are around 7.5 million rats in the UK? Possibly? We don’t really know tbh because they’re quite private and who can blame them. Nobody wants nosy humans poking around in their burrows. If you’re in a city, you’re much more likely to be close to one. But the idea that you’re never more than 6 feet from a rat is categorically false, especially if you’re in the Scottish highlands, so hopefully this won’t worry you too much.)

The odd rat isn’t really a problem and there’s little we can do about it. Xtra, our next door neighbour’s little Jack Russell, does a good job with the odd rat.

But this is getting out of hand.

We’ve tried laying a concrete base beneath the chicken run to stop them getting in. Setting live traps and releasing them far away. Setting death traps. Never poison though because poison will kill everything it comes into contact with including our chickens, our sheep, and any owls that might catch a rat.

Took us a while to realise we need to deal with the source.

So yesterday we took delivery of a really fancy pedal-operated rodent-proof feeder. It’ll take a couple of weeks for the chooks to learn how to use it, but it will keep the rats out. And if there’s nothing for the rats to eat, they’ll leave.

Everyone’s a winner.

Why is it that humans will do anything but deal with the underlying problem? We love a sticking plaster.

Got a leaky sink? Find a bucket and pop it underneath to catch the drips. FOR A YEAR.

Got an emotional problem? A stiff drink will cure that because it’s much easier than digging into whatever trauma lies beneath.

Stuck on how to start writing a book or an article? Fling a question into AI and let it do the thinking for us because the possibility of our writing being a bit shit is too painful.

At some point, though, we’re gonna end up with rotted floorboards, a drinking problem, and a total inability to do hard things with our brains.

The new feeder will be a bit of a pain for a couple of weeks while our rescue chickens decide it’s not terrifying then learn to use it, and the rat problem will go away.

Deciding NOT to use AI when things get tough will be hard for a while, then the joy of messing around on paper will come back.

We just need to remember that the idea isn’t to bash out something perfect first time. That’s not creating.

Creating is messing around. Doing it badly, finding a nugget of delight in the rubbish, polishing it up, and playing with it.

Go make a mess. Let me know how it goes.

And if you’d like a human partner to mess around with and write that damn book, I’m taking on one private coaching client for May and one VIP Day client.

If you’d like to talk about either of these, reply to this email.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.