Nina feeds the birds. The birds feed the mice. Roland kills the mice. It’s a vicious circle.

Nina has four bird feeders attached to the railings on the back deck. Two have thistle seed and two have some kind of a standard mix. However, the birds are very selective about which seeds they eat and they toss about half the seeds overboard onto the deck or onto the ground below the deck.

A colony of mice have discovered the bounteous supply of seeds on the ground and on the deck. Over the winter a number of mouse holes have popped up through the snow just below the back deck. A week or so ago we noticed a few of the little critters venturing onto the deck to feast on the seeds that hadn’t been swept up. That was the final straw. Time get rid of the mice before they decide there’s a better feast inside the house!

I loaded six traps with peanut butter and put them out on the deck. So far: eight dead mice. I’m also putting a bunch of Decon down the mouse holes every day. I don’t know what the count from that exercise is, yet, but the little blue pellets keep disappearing.

A neighbor cat was coming into the yard earlier in the winter, but after the snow piled up along the fence the cat couldn’t get in anymore. I’m going to make a pathway for the cat. I’m sure that’s why the cat was showing such interest in our yard and we need Tabby to come back!

When the snow finally melts (still a lot of snow visible in the picture!) and the ground thaws sufficiently, then it’s time to start the fourth front on this war with the mice: the rototiller. We’ll churn up the ground below the deck and I think we’ll put down paving stones or something so we can sweep up the seeds the birds toss overboard and dispose of them in a way that’s less inviting to the mice. If I’ve killed off eight of them in the past four days, there’s got to be hundreds down there … breeding … eating seeds … pooping … peeing … just good fertilizer for the yard after I rototill them up!

I hope I don’t have to bring out the big guns … I wouldn’t want this war to have to escalate with no endgame in sight, kind of like what’s going on in some unnamed country who’s initials are ‘Iraq’….