Of Mice And Me

Today is such a gorgeous day that I decided to give the front yard a little bit of TLC. In addition to taking down the Christmas lights, I decided that I should go ahead and get a jump start on ridding the garden of unwanted weeds, and give the yard a little bit of a haircut. (Note to self…the next time Hubby decides to jaunt off on an extended stay on the other side of the world, seriously discuss hiring someone to mow the yard and trim shrubs in his absence.)

I opened the garage door and looked over into the corner where we keep the yard care items. Next to the lawn mower is a bin of lawn care chemicals and such…bags of weed and feed, seed, fungicide and ammonium nitrate, all neatly corralled in an extra blue bin that I had lying around. You can imagine my shock and disgust when I saw that that pesky mouse (or quite possibly rat) had gotten into the grass seed and eaten quite a bit of it…leaving the shells and his droppings all over the place. Yuck.

I swear, Hubby is missing out on all the fun of homeownership these days.

So I pull out the lawn mower and other items so that I can get to the bin to clean up this mess, when I suddenly have a flash. It's the night that I discovered this unwanted guest as he scurried across my path in the garage. Apparently, he was abandoning the bird seed in one corner for the grass seed in the other corner. Then I suddenly remember the scream and scurrying that occurred in the general direction of this particular corner of the garage after I returned from the hardware store with my sonic blasters. YES!! They work!! I must have successfully chased the little bugger off that night, and he hasn't returned since. Thus, my continuously empty glue boards.

VICTORY!!

And while I unpack the blue bin and take note of the items inside, I wonder exactly what he might have feasted on in this area. Did he stick strictly to grass seed, or did he sample other offerings in the bin? Did he inadvertently poison himself and then scurry off to his demise? Or did he sample the offerings and wind up in some sort of drug induced haze, stumbling back to his den. "Dudes! Ya gotta go check this stuff out!!"

I can only wonder.

I continued my labor of the day - after several attempts, the lawn mower roared to life and my lawn has been trimmed. I am a good neighbor once again. I've put down a bit of grass seed in the yard in an attempt to combat the brown spots that have crept across the yard. I've weeded my front flower bed, and adjusted some of the new brick edgers that are in place around the border of the bed. I cleaned the bird bath and refilled my feeder. Dying plants have been pulled, thriving plants have been pruned.

The Christmas lights came down, and have been safely packed away along with the other holiday items that were around the house.

A sense of tidiness has been restored.

My labors completed, I can sit in my office and gaze out the window, watching my feathery friends descend on my garden in a celebration of feed and water. I get about twenty wrens at a time, an occasional pigeon and a scrub jay. Yes…all these creatures are welcome in my sanctuary.

But not that mouse. (Or rat!)