The Case of the Perfectly Positioned Poop

Such a very long time since my cracker-jack, sleuthing self, Marigold Holmes, and my ever-faithful, not-so-steady-on-his feet-but-capable assistant, Watson, have had a mystery to solve.  It started like this.  The Goatmother would trod out to the barn every morning to perform her usual round of maid-service, and to distribute corn to those stupid ducks in the pond.  And, every morning when she opened the barn door, there would be a perfectly positioned pile of little poops right in front of the door.  Now I suppose one might not find this so odd in itself.  I mean many a barn is inhabited by freeloaders other than the ones that are actually supposed to be there.  (Oh, oops.  Did I really just say that?)  But the rather remarkable thing in this instance,  is that first of all, there was an obvious lack of scurrying into corners when the Goatmother threw open the door and turned on the light.  Secondly,  and most significant in my savvy opinion, is that no where else in the barn was there any evidence of poop except  the one little pile, every morning, right smack dab in the center of the doorway.  How very peculiar, yet curiously organized.

So Watson and I hopped right onto the matter.  Clue one, there was never a daylight occurrence, so obviously the transgression was happening at night.  Now the door between the inner sanctum and our area of the barn is closed at night, making it impossible for us to do any kind of proper surveillance.  However, with my superior ear positioning, I could manage to listen rather well.  Sadly, when you stand next to Boo, few sounds can be heard above the incessant munching.  Obviously Watson was in a much better position to carry out this assignment.  Unfortunately, since Peanut is obsessed  with bouncing back and forth off the hoof trimming stand to gain, what he sees as, a better position from which to butt Watson, little success came from that front.

Admittedly we were failing.  Was it a squirrel?  A chipmunk?  Why were the poops only in one place and why was that place so resolutely chosen?  Was someone trying to send the Goatmother a message?  'Enter Ye not here, for this is my domain, Woman!'?  Now, I would like to interject here that most of you would probably like to see a picture of the 'evidence'.  But allow me to say that no picture will be forthcoming because, let's face it, how genteel is a picture of a pile of little poops?  I ask you, would this be at all proper?

Anyway, the Goatmother got tired of waiting, I'm afraid.  After all, this had been going on for almost two weeks.  In my defense, I had my mouth fu ... uh ... hooves full with other things.  Nonetheless, out came the live trap.  I have to complain a bit, here, because guess what she used to bait the live trap?  Yep.  My Peanuts!  Well, I have to say at least the culprit has good taste, because this morning when the Goatmother entered, there was the customary pile of little poops, but across the way, there inside the live trap, sat a little beady-eyed fuzzy.  No, it wasn't a fuzzy squirrel or a cute little chipmunk.  It was just a plain, garden-variety, rat, albeit not a very old one.  The Goatfather, official taxi service to the temporarily imprisoned, was informed  he had a fare, and the little blighter was hauled away.  We won't say to where, but should you happen to see a small rat running about, it absolutely did not come from here.

Well, mystery solved.  Hay, we helped didn't we?  We kept watch, as best we could, and offered all the advice my superior intellect has to offer.  When the Goatfather got back, he trekked off down to the pasture to burn a large pile of brush collected from the last big wind storm.  When he lit the fire, guess what?  Rodent-type dwellers scattered to the four winds.  Cabra was delighted and carried on like a small bulldozer running to and fro, nose to the ground, pushing aside all the leaves.  Don't worry.  She didn't catch anything.  No, I expect they all ran this way.