Country living is getting to me. I returned home to find a ghastly scene beneath my laundry sorting station. First, a bit of background.
The barn behind our house was very nearly falling over and was a danger, so last weekend it came down. This left many of God’s creatures (cats=precious, rodents=less so) homeless. Seeing how we’re just twenty yards away, our place must have seemed like the obvious place to go. We usually deal with this sort of thing in Autumn when the corn comes down, but it is unusual for this time of year-and in such large numbers. Mind you, the weather has been bizarre-we haven’t seen rain like this in a generation-so all sorts of wildlife is coming out (turtles, bullfrogs) to visit. By the way, I think I know where all the missing honeybees have gone, if anyone wants to bring a hive and come collect them.
Conventional traps are useless on these fuckers. I hate like hell to do it, but we laid out a few glue traps before we left for the day hoping that in the quiet, the mice would come out to play.
Danny was helping me put away groceries when I heard a rustling from behind the cart. Expecting to see a rodent writhing away in glue, I shooed Danny out to the living room. “Oh shit”, I thought looking at the sizeable snake caught in the glue trap. The poor thing’s last thought must have been,
“These people are AWESOME! Look, they even left me a mouse for lunch.”
My husband did the honour of ending its misery, but I felt just awful seeing it not only stuck in glue, but wrapped around the wheel of the cart. I suppose if it were later in the season, the snake might have been upwards of six feet long (we had one of those big-boys in the kitchen the year we moved in). There’s not much you can do to “snake-proof” a home, and bull snakes, while they resemble rattle snakes (and will often shake their tails as though about to strike) are pretty harmless. I’m sure they would bite if you accidentally stepped on one, but otherwise, they’re not much of a bother. In fact, they usually help keep the mouse population down. I felt just awful about this one being caught like that.
Just as I was getting Danny ready for bed, two more little mice (and they are very tiny) scurried beneath the washer and dryer, taunting me. I’m going to get a cat. Allergies be damned, Siberians are supposed to be liveable for people with allergies and if I have to take allergy shots to put up with a cat, so be it. I cannot stand the mice anymore, and I don’t wish to sacrifice anymore snakes.
Blech.
The barn behind our house was very nearly falling over and was a danger, so last weekend it came down. This left many of God’s creatures (cats=precious, rodents=less so) homeless. Seeing how we’re just twenty yards away, our place must have seemed like the obvious place to go. We usually deal with this sort of thing in Autumn when the corn comes down, but it is unusual for this time of year-and in such large numbers. Mind you, the weather has been bizarre-we haven’t seen rain like this in a generation-so all sorts of wildlife is coming out (turtles, bullfrogs) to visit. By the way, I think I know where all the missing honeybees have gone, if anyone wants to bring a hive and come collect them.
Conventional traps are useless on these fuckers. I hate like hell to do it, but we laid out a few glue traps before we left for the day hoping that in the quiet, the mice would come out to play.
Danny was helping me put away groceries when I heard a rustling from behind the cart. Expecting to see a rodent writhing away in glue, I shooed Danny out to the living room. “Oh shit”, I thought looking at the sizeable snake caught in the glue trap. The poor thing’s last thought must have been,
“These people are AWESOME! Look, they even left me a mouse for lunch.”
My husband did the honour of ending its misery, but I felt just awful seeing it not only stuck in glue, but wrapped around the wheel of the cart. I suppose if it were later in the season, the snake might have been upwards of six feet long (we had one of those big-boys in the kitchen the year we moved in). There’s not much you can do to “snake-proof” a home, and bull snakes, while they resemble rattle snakes (and will often shake their tails as though about to strike) are pretty harmless. I’m sure they would bite if you accidentally stepped on one, but otherwise, they’re not much of a bother. In fact, they usually help keep the mouse population down. I felt just awful about this one being caught like that.
Just as I was getting Danny ready for bed, two more little mice (and they are very tiny) scurried beneath the washer and dryer, taunting me. I’m going to get a cat. Allergies be damned, Siberians are supposed to be liveable for people with allergies and if I have to take allergy shots to put up with a cat, so be it. I cannot stand the mice anymore, and I don’t wish to sacrifice anymore snakes.
Blech.
Ooops. My mistake-it was a fox snake, not a bull snake.
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