Critters

We’ve got critters up the whazoo here, of all sorts and they’re making a royal mess.

We’re inundated with spiders. We’ve got’em everywhere and they’re making mess all over the siding. I’ve got a tangle of webs all over the outdoor lights, pergola, decking and just about anyother web-worthy surface and bug gut stains all over my yellow siding. Gross.

I’ve got something that’s digging in my garden box. I noticed that my beautiful parsley was dying and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I noticed that it seemed loose, so I stuffed it back into the soil. The other day it was loose again, so I pulled up a bit and found that there were no roots left and a big tunnel underneath it. ARGH!!! All my soil is BEHIND the garden box and between the back of the box and the side of the house. Real convenient. I think I saw a vole last week, but it could have been a mouse. I don’t know.

We had a mouse in the house in the spring. Hubster was the only one to see it. Now that we don’t have cats, I guess this is inevitable. Anyway, he tried to catch it humanely. I bought the “nicest” traps we could find and tempted it with premium peanut butter. That little bugger ate the peanut butter and did not disturb the trap at all.

So, I bought the old fashioned snap traps. Somewhat reluctantly. We don’t relish killing other beings, but the thought of a mouse scampering all over my house was icking me out. Hubster set the “old snappy” trap one night, as well a humane trap and then he went to bed. My Mum was visiting and we were watching tv. Less than 5 minutes later, we heard the trap go off. Old snappy, of course. Hubster had had a problem getting the bar to stay set when he was getting the trap ready, so we thought that maybe it had just “gone off”. From across the room, my Mum peered around the kitchen island and said “that looks like more than peanut butter. Ewww”.
Hubster came down and cleaned it up. He looked at the little mouse and said “Dude! You had a choice! You could have been set free…. Sigh”. He felt really bad.

Anyway, apparently while the girls and I were away he caught another mouse in the garage. In about 5 minutes again.

Today, when I got the stroller out to go for a walk, I noticed droppings on the seat of the stroller. (gross, gross, ick, barf). I took the cover off and washed it. Then later on, I noticed a lot of droppings in one corner of the garage and a dead mouse in the other corner. Ew.

Needless to say, we’ve set some more traps in the garage.

I have no idea what to do about the one in the garden.

What a mess.