Posts Tagged ‘rodents’
Food Thieves
A while back I mentioned the rats weren’t doing the usual tunneling under the barn walls. Maybe that’s because they were finding everything they wanted inside.
Asher had started to show extra interest around the pallet where bags of feed get stacked. I assumed it was likely rodents were leaving their scent under there and figured Asher wasn’t hurting anything since he wasn’t digging. Although, he was spending so much time there and being so quiet about it, eventually I decided to take a look for myself.
That is a shot looking under the pallet. There is a pile of horse feed from a breached bag above. The wetness on the plank in the foreground was from Asher’s mouth. He was working hard to consume every morsel he could reach.
In pulling bags off the stack to find which one was leaking, I discovered it was three bags that had been chewed open.
I salvaged some of the feed pellets but it was hard because most of it was contaminated with shards of the plastic bags the thieves had chewed through.
I’m afraid I may have spoiled the rodents’ Thanksgiving feast by cleaning it all up.
Cyndie and I drove to her brother’s home in Edina, MN for a fabulous feast of Thanksgiving-worthy flavors. I shouldn’t need to eat again for a few days.
It is official now. Christmas decorations can legally go up and carols are allowed. I will do no shopping today as an intentional snub to the rampant over-commercialization of the holidays. I did charge a few dollars on Wednesday night to rewatch “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles” to get me in the spirit of the season, though.
It worked. Gobble, gobble, gobble.
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Irrepressible Digger
Our dog, Asher, runs with a hop that conjures thoughts of a bunny or a leaping whitetail deer. Someone suggested his bouncing down the trail reminded them of Tigger from “Winnie the Pooh.” That struck a chord with us because it precisely describes how his energy looks as he springs in the air. His nickname could easily become, “Tig” because of the way it rolls off our tongues when we see him prancing out of the woods to join us on the way to the barn in the morning.
However, even more than being like Tigger, Asher is 100 percent a digger. He LOVES to dig and he is very, very good at it. When he gets manic and explodes into hyperspeed zoomies, his antics are often punctuated with what looks like an uncontrollable need to dig between huge figure-8 lap rotations.
He pauses for just a second or two and unleashes several strokes against the earth that send turf flying, instantly creating a hole deeper than the trenches made by the resident moles.
Trying to stop him is worthless because the digging is over quicker than words of admonishment can be uttered and then he is off again with another race around some imaginary track.
Maybe his nickname will become, “Dig.”
Yesterday, I was working on a variety of projects that had me moving between the shop garage, the manure composting area, and back near the labyrinth. I came out with Asher and we wrestled in the front yard for a while with his favorite “Tug-N-Toss” Jolly Ball before I wandered off to accomplish whatever I could. He didn’t follow me.
I figured he would run through the woods for a bit and then either return to me or head up to the house to lay on the front steps as has become common of late.
He remained out of sight long enough that I figured Cyndie had let him back in the house but as I came around the barn one time we practically bumped into each other. I immediately noticed his hackles were raised but I didn’t know why. It was clear to me that something was up.
Stepping into the barn, it was easy to see what he was excited about.
He had dug after one of the many burrowing critters that frequent our barn. He dug so much, he turned up two rubber mats and completely dislodged one of the bricks supporting a wood cabinet.
There was no evidence that he achieved any reward for his effort. If there was a rodent in the immediate vicinity, I’m sure it got the message there is a new sheriff in town.
As fitting as it would seem to call Asher, “Dig,” I hesitate to use that moniker because it sounds too much like a command to do exactly that. He doesn’t need any extra encouragement from us in that regard, that’s for sure.
I like it a lot better when he looks like he’s having “fun, fun, fun-fun-fun!” leaping with that big bounce down the trail.
That’s what Ashers do best. Hoo-hoo-hoo!
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Foggy Morning
The weather app on my phone notified me that we were under dense fog conditions first thing this morning. That proved to be a spot-on analysis.
It wasn’t all that obvious in the woods where Asher and I were breaking spider webs that crossed our trails. When we reached the fence of the back pasture, it was as if none of our neighbors existed.
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The horses didn’t seem overly worried about their limited views. They were spread out with heads up when I came around the corner, appearing well aware of my arrival.
Every morning there is obvious evidence of burrowing critter activity in and around the barn overnight. There is enough spillage from the horses’ sloppy eating that barn pigeons and rodents find more than enough motivation to hang around. For some reason, this morning a couple of rodents didn’t wait until I was gone to emerge from their tunnels to scrounge. That’s the first time I have actually seen them.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the neighbor’s orange cat lurking around our property of late. I wonder if Asher would be okay with us getting a barn cat to keep the rodent population from exploding. In the meantime, we will be adding some traps in the barn.
One of our ash trees near the (vacant) chicken coop is proving to be our “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to the onset of autumn.
Every year it drops leaves sooner than most other trees have begun to change color. This year it stands out more than usual for being so bare-branched so soon.
Is the middle of September early for bare branches? Sure seems like it to me, especially when we have 80°F temperatures forecast for the coming week. It still feels an awful lot like summer around here, even with a cool fog blanketing the landscape this morning.
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Obvious Evidence
Based on all the mice caught in our traps throughout the winter, it should come as no surprise that they navigate the harsh elements as well as long-legged wildlife, but I am always intrigued by the obvious evidence rodents are burrowing beneath the snow.
Despite the frigid overnight temperatures greeting me bitterly at each morning feeding the last few days, it appears one little critter was busy making tracks.
There is also obvious evidence of the increasing angle of sunshine and its growing influence by way of melting that is occurring despite the chilly air temperatures. That will prove to be a benefit when it comes to the threat of spring flooding. There is a deeper snowpack now than we’ve had in many years and if it were to melt all at once, flooding would likely occur.
There is an additional aspect that could dramatically influence whether we have any troublesome flooding this spring or not and that is the amount of rain that will fall in spring storms. Based on a recent video released by our county’s historical society, flooding from heavy rain can happen at any time of year. In 1942 there was a flooding rain that happened in September.
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When I saw this video the first time, I realized I would quickly blame the extent of warming of our planet if this kind of flooding rain happened today. In my lifetime, I’ve never seen rain of the intensity described by Dr. James Vedder happen in the fall. But it did happen back in 1942.
Flooding rain fell in July of 1879 and washed away a mill and flooded my great-great-grandfather’s house a little over ten miles south of where we live now.
To me, this is obvious evidence that the steep ravines and many rivers of the “driftless region,” of which our county is included, are susceptible to flooding from heavy rain.
I wonder how many mice survive that kind of extreme weather.
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Yard Pests
As the saying goes, “this is why we can’t have nice things.” Sure I’d like to have a smooth green carpet of inviting lawn grass to run my toes through as I frolic in the yard with our dog or play croquet and bocce ball, but no, I don’t want to exterminate a throng of burrowing pest to achieve it.
We pick our battles and this is one I don’t want to fight, so we live with the ongoing dirt mounds and raised tunnels of destruction scattered widely across all of our mowed areas.
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With so much real estate available for the critters to thrive, we willed the marauders to move on to open fields by stomping their tunnels and mounds in our yard last year, but as the snow receded and the topsoil begins to thaw, the evidence appears as if their numbers have tripled.
They aren’t getting the message.
The wind is blowing warm air our way today and bringing with it fire warnings because the ground is very dry this spring. Almost all of the snow has melted and we don’t have any muddy areas along our trails. The drainage ditches had water flowing in them only two times this year. It is surprisingly uncharacteristic compared to the previous 8 spring seasons we’ve lived here.
If we observe the yard at a distance, it looks just fine. There remains one dwindling pile of snow near the front door, but that’s about it. Today is officially the first day of spring.
Warm sunshine will beckon for us to romp in the yard and toss the old horse toys for Delilah to chase.
The season of mowing draws nigh, but we are going to need some rain or I’ll be able to trim the lawn with a pair of scissors.
Although, that might just be enough to drive the yard pests back toward the open fields. Either way, it seems we don’t get to have nice lawns.
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Winch Works
I discovered that my problem with the dead winch on our ATV wasn’t the winch or the solenoid. It all works just fine if the wires are properly segregated. What would mess with the wiring?
RODENT invaders!
What is the deal with mice and chipmunks that they choose to chew on wires? Does the plastic coating taste good to them? Are they trying to get more copper in their diet?
The other question I have, from driving past farm after farm with equipment parked outside year round, is how they deal with the constant threat of damage from nesting critters.
We leave our truck parked outside most of the time, and now when we lift the hood there is the disconcerting sound of collected acorns rolling down inside the lid.
The heat tapes that our gutter installer put in the problem spots of our roof and routed through the downspout and into the garage to the AC outlets only lasted one year before rodents chewed through both of them.
Maybe this explains why one of our neighbors has so many outdoor cats. A way to keep the rodents at bay.
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Relative Something 