Sunday, May 2, 2010

A turtle, a toad, a mouse, and 7 geese


Above, a mama proudly counts her 5 babies. Either that or she's telling them, "Go, go go! That lady with the camera and her loud kids are gaining on us!". But what is that slow black thing just beyond them??? A turtle makes it's way from the small creek on the right of the path, to my parents' pond on the left of the path.




I'm not a huge fan of Canadian geese, but each spring their babies melt any ill feelings I may have about their loud honks and copious poops.

Unfortunately, on this day I was witness to the complete cycle of life as I got home and found I'd run over a toad. Obviously I feel bad about this. I'll spare you the morbid details and vivid picture I still have in my head. I love finding toads in my garden (alive, that is!). I feel they're the ultimate symbol of gardener's friend. I also can't help but feel like I was the one who attracted it to my garden in the first place, and then I killed it. Ugh.

And now to add on to the suffering, I'm almost certain there's a mouse stuck behind a wall in my house. We can hear the frantic scratching, then a long pause, followed by more scratching. There are horrendous smells from time to time, and this explains it. My husband thinks the thing will die, rot, stink, then the whole situation will be fine (not that he's callous about this, but he's just accepting the reality of this situation. This is a man who (literally) brings injured baby birds to the animal shelter). I have seen one too many house detective shows on HGTV to feel comfortable being nonchalant about it. Supposedly mice in the walls can create a LOT of damage to the electrical system, and can cause a real problem for people with allergies (younger daughter has asthma). Then again, what are the options? Cut holes in the drywall? Who knows. Any advice?

Posted by Wendy at 10:12 PM
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18 comments:

  1. A mouse got stuck behind a wall?.. thats a difficult one. The other day a mouse got trapped in the drawer of a low cabinet. Yop, our eldest helped to carry the cabinet far away and opened the drawer. The poor thing looked confused and quickly run into the woods... But in the wall..., yea, it will a way, like what your husband suggested.

    ~bangchik
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  2. A mouse in the wall is tough. You will most likely just have to tough it out if it is stuck. If it not, you are absolutely right - get rid of it! I used live traps on mine. Just remember - PEANUTS! They love peanuts.
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  3. Lovely photo of the geese - their babies really are so sweet.
    Mice in the wall - ick! No idea what to tell you, thankfully we have few mice here, so I've never dealt with that.
    It does remind me of the old house we lived in when I was a kid though, and there would be rats in the attic... you could hear them scurrying about at night and it was enough to scare a little girl to death! Some of those died, too, and yep, the smell sure was awful.
    I hope you find a way to get the little furries out - permanently!
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  4. Hi Wendy..I loved your post..so much adventure packed in..wild and domestic adventures! What an amazing scene to have the ducks and turtle..pretty cool! and yes poor mister toad...hugs! well good lukc wiht the mouse situation! Have a happy day...! Wishign you more adventures, pleasant ones!
    Kiki~
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  5. Goodness, if I had a mouse in my wall, I wouldn't know what to do with it either. Lure it out with a bait? There's gotta be a big enough opening for it to climb in and out of the walls.

    I have a raccoon that comes to my backyard once in a while. It's a big fat fella too. I can hear him at night as if he's playing with my plants and flowers.
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  6. Wendy, I feel your toad pain. I actually STEPPED on one and killed it last summer. It was awful, and I felt terrible about it.Never saw it there at all!

    As for that mouse. I suppose you could try to lure it out with a baited trap - the humane kind if you are like me.

    Otherwise, the scratching will end one way or another, but like you, I worry about damage to the house and the wiring.

    At least you have the geese and the turtle!
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  7. We had possums in our ceiling once. My husband tried to lure them out with bananas. Hmmm....didn't work so well. Sad to say we had to call the exterminator. But your baby geese sure are cute!
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  8. We had critters in the attic and didn't anything about it until I had to spend several days up there on a project, wallowing in what they can do after living there for a few years. Oh that was awful. We put up screening to keep them out, but I wish that addressed your problem at hand better.

    As far as the geese, we don't have many of them around here, and I still think they're big, regal birds. Of course if I'd experienced the bedlam they can create I'd probably have a different opinion of them.
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  9. Hi Wendy i love the turtle and the geese, but the mouse trapped inside the wall is as you said "horrendous". I can very well relate to the situation when it die there, most horrendous! It is better trapped alive than dead. The smell will give you problems for several days, and the thought of something decaying somewhere is maybe traumatic. yucks!
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  10. I was holding my garden scissors the other day and saw a grasshopper on a leave and munching away. I wanted to cut the fellow into two but did not have the heart to do it... ???
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  11. That turtle sure looks quite big in the picture! How cute, the whole geese family was probably taking a family walk. Sorry, can't offer any advice on your mouse situation. I would go insane too if I had this problem.
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  12. I love the scene of the family of geese and turtle walking along the path. So nice. I'm worried about the mouse trapped between the walls. If it dies there, it will stink and rot and there is also a danger of diseases that it carries. In one of my previous working place, a rat died on the ceiling, rotted and some dust fell onto a staff's desk. He got very very sick and had to be hospitalised for some time. Better to get an exterminator to help rid you of this pest.
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  13. Hi Wendy Dear, I love the baby geese too, but the parents, uh...not so much. I just photographed a family of wild ducks. I'll have to post it on my blog. They're just adorable.

    We use boxed poison bait to kill mice in our walls. We put it in our attic. They eat it and it desiccates their bodies so they don't smell. You probably know all of this... It's admittedly a morbid but necessary procedure.

    I'm sorry about the poor toad. It was an unfortunate accident.
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  14. We had a mouse in the wall that used to drive my daughter crazy...it did finally stop although I'm not sure why or how.

    I won't mention that I had a dead bat in my laundry room....twice. Still creeps me out to think about it.
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  15. The toad -- nor the universe -- would not hold you responsible for its death, Wendy. (But I admire your sensitive, empathic heart.) As you rightly pointed out, it is the circle of life... and I bet that toad had an excellent life in your garden right up until the very end.

    The mouse... I don't know what to tell you. Once there was a bird trapped in our slightly squashed gutter spout, and I paid a good chunk of money to have the gutter guy come in, take the thing apart, and free the bird -- only to discover once he'd done so that the bird must have escaped after I'd made the call. (I'd been indoors and missed that part.) So frustrating -- and in your situation, where would you even begin?

    Crossing my fingers the mouse finds its own, non-wire-damaging way back out, just like that bird, and doesn't come back.
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  16. thanks for your comments, guys! I don't really know what to do about the mouse problem. There's lots of info in the INternet, but of course, it's all conflicting. Good news is that the noise is gone. No stink so far, but that could be a matter of time.

    Today I found 2 dead mice in the garden (hunted by Sassy the cat - she eats the heads off. nasty). Guess the problem might be much worse if Sassy were not around.

    Stephanie, I totally laughed out loud at your comment. I've also been a little snip-happy in the garden and have been tempted to snip insects that are just sitting there. I did snip a slug once, giving into temptation, and I felt really horrible.
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  17. I'm sorry...the only time we ever called vector control, we found their advice inhumane and totally unacceptable. A big cat, maybe?

    One day, driving down the road, we saw a couple out walking their...TURTLE...on a leash, no less. They were walking real slow.
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  18. Turtle on a leash?!

    One guy in our neighborhood walks his parrot. You can hear them coming down the road. He's always in a torn up sleeveless shirt (tattered from the talons of the bird), short shorts, and often has ankle weights strapped on. They're a super friendly couple, and quite a sight, but make me happy every time!
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