The circle of life

I can hear them late at night while I try to work in my home office. Tiny little scratches coming from the outside wall near the air conditioner. I’ve never actually seen them, but I can feel their presence. And of course my bunny killer Hope knows they are there.

Mice.

Tiny little field mice looking for a warm place to burrow for the winter. They have chosen to build their home just below the water faucet along the foundation of my house.

I’m torn about what to do. I can’t put mouse traps or poison in my backyard on the ground. Have you met my dogs? Grace would try to lick the peanut butter off a trap. I can just picture her running around the yard with the damn thing hanging off her lip, bouncing like she does until I rescue her from the horror. Hope would eat the poison, or eat the mouse that eats the poison. Why does that remind me of a story about a frog, a fly, a fish and a bear? Anyway . . .

Hope has managed to dig up all along the foundation looking for these little rodents. I fill it back in with dirt, she digs it back out. It’s a game we’ve been playing for months now.

I think for now I will leave the mice alone. Circle of life and all. There’s a kettle of hawks that fly over multiple times a day eyeing my neighbor’s little dog, a few racoons that mosey in occasionally looking for a trash can to dig through, and an old hoot owl that poops all over my deck all hours of the night. Surely one of them will be hungry for a snack.