Benny at the Rat House, Marshall, NC 1985
I’m sure most parents say this, but it’s hard for me to believe I have a child who is forty-one years old.
This picture was made when Benny was five. I was newly single and struggling to get my photography work in front of people. We moved a lot in those first years—the cabin on Big Pine, downtown Marshall in a converted warehouse space, The Rat House, a house in Asheville, an apartment in Durham, and finally closing the circle and moving back to Big Pine. We did this in four years.
Benny was a trooper throughout and I look back at our time together then with fondness. Time at the beach, marching in Civil Rights Rallies, playing in Wilson Cove Branch on Big Pine, train rides.
The Rat House is not one of those fond memories. The place was fine when we moved in, but within weeks we were seeing rat droppings and then rats most mornings. We set out bait, and traps, and knocked them back for a few weeks, but they always returned, in seemingly greater numbers, and wise to our defenses. We moved.
I bring this up because Benny and I are dealing with rats again. Benny at his house in Portland and us in our barn on Paw Paw. Again, we set out bait and traps. We moved our chickens to a rat-proof enclosure and removed access to their food sources. We await warm weather and the awakening of the two black snakes who live in the barn. Benny called an exterminator who set traps and bait. That first morning he called to say he had caught three baby rats in one trap, all craving their first, and last, taste of peanut butter.