mice – The Hermits' Rest

There’s Always Time for a Story or Two

I broke my blogging streak yesterday, but I just didn’t have the brain power to do it. My brain was too feeble to put together even my usual simple sentences. I’m still dealing with this virus today, but I have more energy, so I’m gonna say I’m on the mend. (Yes, I know there’s a new COVID strain, and yes, I will get the booster because I’m at risk due to my advanced age.)

This is my picture from yesterday when I felt sickly.

It’s story time, nature observation time, life update time, or whatever. First, I’m cheered every time I go outside these days, because some of my favorite sounds are back, Barn Swallows and White-eyed Vireos. I’ll be tired of them eventually, but right now, those songs convince me it’s spring.

White eyes! Photo by Brad Imhoff. These guys hide in trees, so I rarely see them.

I’m looking forward to seeing hummingbirds soon, because our red yucca are starting to bloom. These are good signs when all the grass is brown and crunchy.

This stuff is nice and green, but the Bermuda grass beside it should be green, too.

Second is another tale of rural living. Yesterday I didn’t feed the horses their supplements, and neither did Kathleen due to recovering from her recent issue. Today I felt up to it, and marched into the tack room (which smells good because it’s the WOMEN’S room and we can turn on the Scentsy diffuser. I digress.

It came time to give Dusty his two scoops of bran powder, and when I reached into the bin, the bran moved. I guess the lid on this bin needs to be very securely attached. Yep. A mouse. One of the little ones. I tried to scoop it out and that’s when the whole dang bin began to move. More than one mouse. They started to try to fling themselves out, as they do. I did not want them in the tack room!

I did NOT take pictures today, so here’s the henhouse mouse.

So I bravely dragged the bin outside, grateful that the bran stuff isn’t very heavy. I did my best to encourage exiting by angling the bin downward, but of course the rodents tried to climb up or bury themselves in the bran. My goal was for zero mice to crawl up my arms. I succeeded! In the end, SIX mice scampered away. I hope something eats them.

Maybe they went over to chicken world where there is corn.

How did six of them get in the bin? There’s not any mouse poop around since Kathleen cleaned the room. Maybe they were in there when the bran was put in? Mystery. Even AI can’t solve that one. I do assure you, though, that I put the lid back on very tightly.

Lids must stay secure or critters will get in. Stock photo.

Later, Kathleen helpfully offered up the theory that if they’d kept eating the bran they’d have gotten all swollen and died. Eww. Now that’s in my head.

Boom! Note mouse has 3 tails. Quality AI.

So, to change the subject, I want to share how happy I am with a work development. Today I was meeting with a colleague on my new project and we got to talking about our previous lives. And talking. And laughing. And blathering away in geeky grad student language about our original fields of study, linguistics and folklore. At some point we were practically giddy about how much we have in common. And some of it is pretty niche far left cultural stuff that you usually don’t get to talk to random coworkers about.

I didn’t mention crafts to her, but hey, five rows of my blanket!

Then she told me the other woman running the project I’ve been brought in on is secretly a cultural anthropologist. I’d never have guessed.

I’m quite thrilled to have gotten to know someone just as weird as me who speaks the same quasi-intellectual language I used to speak. Sometimes I do miss aspects of my earlier years, and learning is one of them. My new friend and I both admitted we could stay in grad school the rest of our lives. I’d just keep getting Master’s degrees to go with all my interests!

I guess today was not all bad. It was quite interesting and satisfying. Hope yours was, too.

A New Farm Worker?

Busy times and many surprises at the Hermits’ Rest today. I had 5 hours of meetings through early afternoon, so I took a break to relax and enjoy the animals. I didn’t relax, though.

Darryl certainly doesn’t seem relaxed, either.

First I took a big hunk of chickweed over to the poultry pals. They had a little plant party and tossed it all around. That was cute. Not so cute was seeing little moving shapes in the supposedly sealed storage bin for the chicken feed…again.

There’s no denying it. House mice are cute.

I went ahead and fed the birds, dreading having to remove more mice. I left the lid of the bin open to encourage a voluntary exit.

I went back to the bin and removed the four bags of feed. I was happy to see that there was now only one mouse left. The other had flung itself out. They literally flung themselves at the sides of the bin hoping to get high enough to escape. I tried to get the remaining mouse out with a feed scoop, then almost got it to run into a more cup-like scoop. Instead, as I leaned over to encourage it to enter the cup, it jumped on my shirt and ran up my arm! Cute as that was, I admit to flinging it off me. Last I saw it was climbing the screened enclosure to get away.

Soon as we’re finished eating we will look for mice.

I hope it didn’t go near the turkeys and chickens, because they are doing a great job keeping rodents out of their area.

Next, I thought I could go enjoy more peaceful time with the horses. I saw that either Terry had left the tack room door open yesterday or the wind had got it (it no longer latches). That made me a little more cautious as I entered. Good thing I was ready, because I apparently have a new helper in the tack room. Tipper, the black-and-white cat who’s been hanging around for over a month, was lounging in my pink chair.

I thought about it and decided the kitty is welcome there. It certainly will have enough to eat. Maybe at least one of my mouse/rat problems will be lessened. Thanks, new farm worker!

I did get my horse relaxation in, finally. Apache wanted me to rub between his ears and got so relaxed that he started yawning away. He kept it up for five minutes!

Then I looked over where Drew and Spice were hanging out and realized Spice was yawning, too. I guess it’s contagious in horses as well as humans!

We did a Year of the Horse tarot reading in my group tonight, and I got three cards with horses on them!

Sometimes You Have to Do Chores

Today I did so many items on the to-do list, but at the end of the day, I didn’t feel very accomplished. I was trying to get my chores done so I could spend some time in contemplation, which is what I usually do for this time of year, Imbolc or Candlemas.

One of the things people did in the past was sweep out the house and clean the hearth, as the goddess/saint of this time of year is Brigid, patron saint of Ireland, fire, keeping house, and spinning. Among other things.

No wonder I’ve been in such a frenzy of tidying up (though it may not look like it everywhere In the house). I usually light a bunch of candles, but I will tomorrow night.

Commemorative rock. I’m making one for each sabbat this year.

Chores are things that repeat over and over, just like cleaning your living space, so it’s appropriate I spent so much time getting my journal ready for a new month, cataloging all the birds I’ve seen in January, getting food ready to cook…etc., all of which mostly matters to only me.

Kestrel was bird of the month. Photo by Adam Bowley.

The fowl were happy that one chore was buying a new supply of feed and scratch, along with new meal worms. I wish I could trust the local feed store, because I hate having to drive to the next town to get this stuff and horse feed. It took forever to organize the food, because somehow mice had gotten into my supposedly sealed food bin, so I had to chase them around and scoop them out. Plus there was a rather bold field rat who I had to chase out (not one of the cute cotton rats, a BIG one. I’m about tired of rats. Why don’t those cats I keep seeing eat them?

I also eat mice. And when I run, the earth moves beneath my feet.

And to top it off, lifting the heavy feed bags messed up a nail. Oh yeah, weekly manicure is also a chore, though fun.

At least I was able to get the horses fed and watered while it was above freezing. They are eating like, well, horses. I’m glad I have a lot of hay and that mice can’t get in their food bins.

When I finally got to be indoors, I had to do minutes of the Master Naturalist board meeting from Thursday and put up a blog post. By the time I was done with computer work, my contemplation time was no longer available. A bit of yarn work was all I could fit in. I was disappointed to not finish my hat tonight, but I’ll make it (and finishing January on the temperature blanket) a priority for tomorrow.

Chores never end. Still, stop and acknowledge the change of seasons when you can. The light is coming back!

I Found Heaven

Oh, you’d suspect I found metaphorical heaven here on the ranch in the beautiful sunset light.

That is a nice thought! It was a beautiful day, and my sunset walk was pretty darned heavenly.

However, the Heaven I found was not for me. It was for Lucky here.

You see, I went to feed the chickens and noticed the feed bag was rather well chewed. So, I picked up the bag. I was not surprised to see that there were little creatures in my sealed food bin. At least four tiny mice running around on a layer of chicken feed. That could be Heaven for tiny rodents!

I had trouble getting mouse photos. I was kind of grossed out.

That’s when I saw that the mice weren’t alone. Lucky was in there with them. Now, being in a safe warm box full of tasty morsels is any rat snake’s idea of heaven! Lucky is young, but climbed well enough to get in!

Well. Yuck. So, I took out all the food the mice hadn’t gotten to yet. One big bag I took out and emptied onto the ground. That’s where Lucky was hiding. That’s when I picked her up and took her over by the hay bales and let her go (former caregiver for a rat snake, so I have the skills).

I was able to go back to my violated storage container and create an exit for the mice. If they are still there tomorrow I’ll eject them when I clean and disinfect my storage box. I sure hope it hasn’t developed a hole in it. I’m pretty sure all these creatures got in when I had the lid up.

I’m outa here. Thanks for the hay and food!

Anyway, this was all kinda icky. Heck, I was a suburban band mom not all that long ago. I’m not always the tough rancher gal I’d like to be. That’s why I went on that sunset walk. I needed to breathe fresh air.

Ah, a beautiful clasping coneflower that thinks it’s spring.

I did discover multiple spring flowers starting to grow. I assume the next freeze will slow them down, but right now it’s spring-like.

Ah, before I forget, I got my “furniture” set up in the birding station. Two low stools are a table and footrest. They were a pain to put together because the legs are slanted, so I had to smoosh them together to get the bottoms to fit into the tops. I just about didn’t have the arm strength. But I prevailed.

I also got another weatherproof storage box that was easier to put together because it was cheap plastic. I will not store mouse food in it, just my binoculars and cushion in case of rain. It also can serve as visitor seating. So far, the only visitor has been Harvey.

I need to figure out what to do with the leftover wood. I’m not sure if there’s a plan to use it.

Notice that the inside walls are also finished. This is one classy outdoor folly. My friend Tandy says it looks like the stand where Lucy in Charlie Brown comics used to dispense her mental health advice.

I need a sign that says, “The birder is in” perhaps.

Thinking of all of you, especially those dealing with health challenges.

You Never Know Who You’ll Meet around Here

I ran into some residents of the ranch I don’t normally see today, all of whom I thought were darned cute. It made for a great lunch break!

First, I headed over to feed the chickens this morning. When I opened the supposedly tightly locked storage container, I heard a rustling. I looked into the scratch, and four little black eyes calmly looked up at me.

This is primo chicken food! (note second nose at far right)

There were two tiny deermice enjoying the seeds. They are just about the cutest little vermin imaginable. I told them hello, then took them over to where I knew there were other mice and let them go. One trotted out and disappeared into the grass, but the other one took a little encouragement. It was a nice visit, but I need to make sure to shut the chicken food container completely from now on!

But, we just met! We don’t want to leave yet!

As I was waiting with Lee for the vet to come and give us our heartworm medicine and trim the dogs’ nails (no, that did NOT happen, and there will be sedation in the future), I wandered around looking for interesting plants and insects. More and more Indian paintbrush plants are blooming, and I just can’t get enough of how pretty they are.

But, mostly I chased this one butterfly. It was all white, at least from a distance. I’m sure I looked ridiculous trying to befriend it, but eventually I got it close enough to get a reasonable photo.

So, it was not all white. At first all I saw was the spot, but when I looked up the white family of butterflies, I saw that there was a border of black and white along the edges of the wings. Aha, it wasn’t a regular white butterfly, but was Anthocharis midea, the Falcate Orangetip, which apparently doesn’t always have an orange tip. No wonder I was confused. I now know they were discovered in 1809 and are mostly found in Texas and Oklahoma. What a cool visitor to meet!

The next encounter I had was with a whole family, or more accurately, 3 of the four lifecycle stages of one insect. First I found this cool looking fellow, scrounging around with a few of its buddies.

This grass is delicious, and so is the chicory.

I was pretty excited when it came up as a seven-spotted lady beetle (ladybug). Sure enough, that’s what the larval stage looks like. Pretty soon I found this happy specimen who’s an adult.

Then, a few feet away, I noticed this guy, who I’d never seen before. The bug was very easy to photograph.

When I looked that one up on iNaturalist, I got all kinds of beetles, but none of them looked right. Then I got to thinking that it sort of looked like that adult and larva ladybug. I googled the life stages of a ladybug, and there was my finding, a ladybug in its larval stage! That means that in 15 minutes I found every part of the lifecycle except eggs!

I also spotted the first pink evening primrose on our property this year. That’s good news!

I’m going to declare this lunch hour a successful social event, where I met some fascinating neighbors!

A Field Day for Field Mice

I am pretty familiar with what lives around the Hermits’ Rest, probably because looking for moving objects is one of my best skills; I seem to have been blessed with better-than-average peripheral vision. That helps with birds, snakes, and stuff. It also helps with rodents, so I’m pretty darned sure we have some big old tree rats (Rattus rattus, my favorite Latin name), along with a heck of a lot of mice and voles. We always see them when Lee shreds the pastures (along with a whole lot of happy hawks, caracaras, and falcons).

The past few weeks, though, I’ve gotten a LOT of practice in mouse identification and spotting. It started when I saw mouse poop in one of the bathrooms. I was just glad it wasn’t rat poop. Lee saw that one and said the dogs “played with it.” Then, I saw some in the other bedroom. Uh oh. Worse, Lee found a mouse in his car. I figure they came in looking for the food that is always in there.

However, when my sister and I got in my (totally food-free) car and were greeted by a friendly mouse face, I knew something was up. She fled, and I escorted that one out of the car. I was concerned. Why are we suddenly seeing so many mice in the house and garage, I wondered?

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