Tis the season

Tis the season....Citrus Season that is!

The citrus is in!  Oranges, both sweet and sour, mandarinas, grapefruit....

Oh it's fabulous - on many street corners you can buy liters of freshly squeezed, squouzed, squozen juice.

You can buy bags of peeled mandarinas sprinkled with chili and lime, bags of peeled sweet oranges and grapefruits, oh be still my salivating taste buds.

Oh and the x'ec; a salad of cut grapefruit, manadrina, jicama with a bit of salt, chili, and lime!

Simply delicious!

I happen to have a large sour orange tree right outside my back yard, as well as several other varities of citrus available to me thanks to neighbors trees that overhang my property; my view is If it's on my side, it's Mine!

So I get China Limas and Limones Indios thanks to my neighbors, and I have a small tree that gives me both Persa Limones and Limones Amarillos!

We use our sour oranges for all sorts of yummy things; mostly drink things.  You know naranjada, margaritas....

Something is cutting into our supply!

So what the heck is it that is doing this?

It's a fricking Fruit Rat, aka Citrus Rat, aka Roof Rat, aka Scurrilous Vermin soon to Die Rat!

They open a hole in the orange and then eat all the flesh and seeds inside, all that litter on the patio are the husks of the orange seeds!

Roof rats/Citrus rats/Fruit rats are actually quite common. Well if you bother yourself to keep up on rat-i-culture!  They grow to about 9 inches in length and weigh about 8 ounces. They are nocturnal and very shy. They are vegetarian but will apparently eat nearly anything for survival, and they are excellent climbers.
They average 6 litters per year with an average of 6 surviving pups per litter. . .WHAAAAA

Call me the rodentinator! Get me some rodenticide!
Tis the Season!