This Means War

As the snow melted, we saw the first glimpses of a very sad, frustrating thing. Our lawn. The mice had gone crazy this year. They destroyed the back third of our lawn, stunted our new lawn from last year, and had created major ankle twisting holes all over. I realize that the mouse problem is bad this year, the ditch banks just crawl when you walk by them, but I blame some of our problem on these two:

They don't get along at all. Karley, the dog, is bound and determined to eat Benne, the cat. So Benne does all his hunting at our neighbors house.

Most years the mice clear out of our yard soon after the snow melts. But this year they have hunkered down for the long haul and created this:

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! My poor lawn. And now they're in the roots of our beloved apricot tree. This is war!

They have also, disgustingly enough, found a way into our house. One night, Benne was crying at our window, again. So I got some cat food and went to throw him in the garage. He snuck in the house, Benne and I got in a fight, and cat food was scatter all over the kitchen floor. Being that it was 2:00am, I left the mess to clean up in the morning. But when I got up the next morning ever kibble of cat food was gone. A couple of days later I found a pile of cat food in my cleaning supply closet! Stinking mice!

Bob has been great about setting traps. We have caught so many mice we've lost track. (Disadvantages of living in the country.) Bob found a bait that they can't resist, Nutella. He caught two in 5 min.

But how do we get rid of them in our lawn? We can't poison them because of Hannalee and the dog being around. So Bob found a solution that seems to be working. He sticks the water hose down one of their holes. Soon their whole tunnel system is full of water and the mice come out to get air. Karley (the dog) is there to catch them. It looks a lot like that hit the mole game as Karley tries to get them before they duck back down.

This is our war plan for now, but we are training warriors for next year:

Stay tuned to learn more about these cute little fuzz balls.