The Better Mousetrap!

For the past year, there have been mice...no rats..no voles...(something!) digging tunnels in the gardens and lawn. This all started with one small tunnel leading from the canebrake to the compost pile. This was not so bad, I could deal with some critter going to the compost to get a free meal now and again. Then those tunnels spread into a huge network under the entire yard. The critters were wreaking havoc on the gardens since as they tunneled, they would gnaw through the roots of plants or eat the tender shoots and bulbs. I lost many of the blueberry bushes and rose bushes this way. When the plants were pulled from the ground, there were no roots! They had be chewed clean away leaving just a bare stalk. I pondered and pondered of just how to get rid of these varmints! I would have thought that the owls, ospreys and hawks would be enough to minimize the mice! Or perhaps the fox, coyotes and bobcats might reduce the rats! Or maybe at least the cat and dog would vanquish the voles! No such luck. These critters (whatever they may be) were taking over the place and were pillaging the property! Ok, ok..so they were making a mess of my gardens and no natural method was solving the problem. What was I to do? With their runs being underground, it seemed nigh on impossible to set traps for the little fellows. Not to mention that other hapless creatures might become ensnared in the traps. I was not out to kill everything that ran through the yard!

Last night, however, one rat decided to take the elimination process into its own hands..err..paws. Son and I had used a roll of chicken wire to cover over the sweet potatoes that we planted in the garden. It started storming before we were able to put up the roll of wire so it laid in the garden overnight. This morning while out planting flower bulbs, I made a gruesome discovery. "Michael! Come get this thing!" I called, in a fit of disgust! The "better mousetrap" had been created quite by mistake! The roll of chicken wire was obviously left right on top of one of the tunnels. During the night, the rat popped out of the tunnel and directly into the loops of the wire. The wire had acted as a huge mousetrap! The fat rat had met its demise purely out of the unfortunate choice of doorways! He had become trapped....or had he?

I tipped the role of wire on end..the rat simply flopped out. He had not become inescapably stuck in the wire as I had thought. This "better mousetrap" might not have "trapped" him at all! On closer inspection of the rat, I found several small puncture wounds. Obviously, the rat had run into the roll of wire to escape a larger predator! It had sought shelter in the wire but that shelter eventually became its deathbed. Poor rat! Wait! Now I am feeling sorry for this rat? Somehow, I liked it better when I thought the rat had killed itself and had not been chased down by some hungry animal! But then, I guess there are not really many suicidal rats that have guilt complexes about eating my beets!