Yesterday morning, I got up when it was still dark out* and took my shower, scooped the litter boxes, and started a load of laundry. I put collars on all the cats who require them, and then I opened the back door. As usual, Tommy and Sugarbutt shoved past me to go out the door, and when I glanced out into the back yard, Newt had frozen by the back steps with something small and dead in his mouth.
“You BETTER not think you’re bringing that in here!” I said to him, and he eyed Tommy and Sugarbutt, who were approaching him with great interest, and he growled and ran across the yard, climbed over the fence, and ran under the blue chicken coop with his dead thing.
(Newt and Maxi both like to carry their kills under the blue chicken coop to eat them. I can only imagine what it looks like under there these days.)
Later, I was sitting at my computer when I happened to glance into the back yard and saw a gathering of cats near the fence on the garden side of the back yard. As I watched, Kara darted forward and snatched up something the size of a small kitten.
I ran to the back door, shoved my feet in my shoes, and ran into the back yard.
“No!” I yelled. “Drop it!” Then I began chasing Kara, who had no intention of dropping the vole she had. I chased her around the clump of daffodils, and when she acted as though she was thinking about running into the house, I decided a better course of action would be to close the back door, so I ran over and did that.
When I went back toward Kara, she dropped the vole momentarily, and I hoped that the damn thing would run through the fence and disappear, but it ran a few slow steps, and then she grabbed it again. I was finally able to pick her up, and I carried her – vole still in her mouth – to the fence, where I shook her and firmly said “DROP IT.”
She did, and the vole ran (slowly) through the fence and into the side yard. I watched, hoping it would pick up speed and disappear behind the garage, but it just kind of moseyed slowly along. I went through the gate, hoping to kind of herd it away from the side yard (I didn’t really want to see Maxi or Newt snatch it up and carry it under the Death Coop), and it slowly moseyed over to a nearby tree and got itself trapped in a hollow in the trunk.
And then my assimilation into country life became complete. Because two years ago when I first moved here, I would have squealed and run around in circles at the idea of touching a damn vole, no matter how cute they are. This time, I sighed and gave up, reached down, and picked the goddamn thing up by the tail. Then I carried it behind the workshop and put it down in a pile of leaves and watched it slowly mosey into the wooded area beyond the ditch.
*I know a lot of people hate the time change in the Spring, but I don’t, because it means that it stays light out ’til almost 7:00 in the evening, and instead of eating dinner, putting up the chickens and then refusing to leave the house again until the next morning, Fred is occasionally willing to go places instead of worrying about being home in time to lock the chickens in their coop. Why, Monday evening we met someone in Nearville who wanted to buy eggs for hatching, and then we had dinner, and Fred didn’t have to fret even once. (Nance calls it “Fredding.” HA.)
Speaking of voles and mice and such, on Sunday afternoon Fred decided to hook up the mower to the tractor and cut the weeds in the back forty. When he was hooking up the mower, first one and then another mouse came skittering out of the inside of the mower. He decided to take the cover off the mower and make sure there wasn’t a nest in there or anything, and he came inside to tell me, so I could come watch.
When he got the cover off, he found a nest inside the mower, and in the nest was a small mouse – and there were a couple of bigger mice in there as well.
They certainly were cute.
Fred took the nest out of the mower and put it in a corner of the shed, and I found another (empty) nest by some fencing in another corner.
I guess if mice can’t nest in a garden shed, where can they?
And did I mention that they’re awfully cute?
“I has my Reese’s peanut butter eggs, I has my eggshells, and I has my John Deere cup. What more does a Suggie need?”
Previously
2008: “The chickens are here!” he said.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: OR MAYBE I JUST NEED A NEW COMPUTER.
2003: So, there. That’s my day so far.
2002: I’m a total calendar-having fool.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
Those are the cutest mice I’ve ever seen!
i am woefully behind on reading your site. because of your PROFANE url, I can’t reach it at work anymore, and I don’t seem to have ANY TIME at home until the weekend, which I spend wrangling pets and children. 🙁
… and now I forgot what I was going to ask. oh yeah – what do you do with the egg shells?
Sugarbutt blends in perfectly with your cabinets and kitchen decor. He is a beautiful countertop decoration!
“Death Coop” is the funniest term I’ve heard today. It sounds like a horror movie: “You won’t believe what’s waiting for you… under the Death Coop!”
And Suggie has knives. Lots of knives.
I think Suggie just better ship those Reese’s peanut butter eggs to me RIGHT NOW and no blood will be shed! I love those things. I always purchase 1 bag of spice jelly neans and 1 package of the pb eggs around Easter. So far, the jelly beans have been purchased and eaten – yum.
Those micers are ADORABLE! And you will never have them enter the house with how many kitties you have, so no problem letting them live so close by.
About the vole — a stray cat arrived at our farm (probably dropped) and she was truly a killer kitty. Nearly every morning she’d present a dead vole at my backdoor, minus head. She had an addiction to biting off the heads, though I never saw her devour the remainder of the vole. I’d see her patroling the perimeter of the property early every morning, watching the ground for voles.
For a time, she stayed in the barn and would also kill mice. OF COURSE, I ended up taking Bitty Kitty into the house with my other cats. DH was upset, since he said she was his rodent/vole death squad. He didn’t want mice in the barn, since they might get into horse feed (though most of it was kept in metal barrels).
under the death coop…
out of the sun…
under the death coop…
there is no where to run…
under the death coop….
death coop.
do do do do do do
Be careful. Those cute mice will chew through the wiring in the tractor. They love electric wiring.
I do love to see a photo of a cat on a worktop…..it makes me feel better about my house 😉
AAACCCCKKKKK!!!! I was raised in the country on a farm, and when I married we moved just a minute down the road from my parents…so still in the country. We FINALLY moved the the city (thankfully) the summer before last. We had several different reasons for moving, but one very high up on MY list was MICE. I have a horrible, deeply rooted fear of them, and ALL rodent like creatures. As you know, they tend to come in to your house during the winter months. Not in the city….so far. So here I am enjoying your blog as I always do…because you are a lover of cats (I have 3 and 5 1 week old kittens). Not only do you talk of SAVING rodents, you have CLOSE UP pictures!!!!! Fred needs to get you to the doctor IMMEDIATELY. You need your head checked…for REAL. Cats should ALWAYS be encouraged to KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL alllllll rodents!!!!!! This entry to your blog has deeply disturbed me. Deeply. Disturbed. DEEPLY.
Kitties, carry on with your war on vermin.
I only had an indoor/outdoor cat once. Never again! There was a funky odor in my bedroom I couldn’t identify. I was ripping it apart and found a dead rodent behind some hat boxes I had in a corner by my dresser. OFCOURSE my husband was out of town so I had to suck it up get gloves and dispose of it! I was horrified. I thought it was a vole but it’s nose was very sharply pointy. It was tiny like a mouse. It was totally gross and I will only do indoor cats forevermore. I had seen the cat torturing the same rodent outside a few days before so I know it was his doing. I know it’s part of nature but I’d prefer it outdoors thankyouverymuch.
I had to close my eyes and quickly scroll past the mouse picture. I’m the same as Carolee, I am so scared of mice! When I was little we lived in the country and my mother put a mouse trap under my bed and one night I heard it go off and the little mouse squeaking in its death throes. I’ve been scarred ever since. I so get the heebee jeebies just thinking about them scurrying around my house! We actually got a couple in the house which we caught in a trap (I set the traps, my husband has to empty them) and (fingers crossed) we have never had anymore since.
I’ll tell ya what Suggie needs. A GINORMOUS KITTEH HUG FROM ME.
Glad to know we’re not the only family that saves field mice! :o)