The back patio had a pile of droppings on it last week or perhaps the week before. I looked around and didn't see anything but then saw up on the fascia that there were a couple of droppings up there too. I decided that denial of this problem was the best way to handle it. After all, I didn't see any mice.
When I was working in the front yard there was a mouse in the weeds. The cat with the broken pelvis was within a foot of it but didn't bother to pounce. What a worthless cat…but if I was still recovering from a pelvis broken in three places I suppose I wouldn't pounce either. That got me to thinking perhaps we are being inundated by mice. I haven't seen any evidence in the house and I keep mouse bait in the garage. Very little of the bait has been nibbled on.
Today I woke up and walked outside and saw a huge pile of droppings in the same corner on the patio. I looked up and about fifty pieces were stuck to the fascia. This is not good. I called the pest control service. I have mice or rats or something in the attic. They need to send someone out today.
I guess the good thing about that is they said sometime between 1 and 4, which meant only ½ day in the office and ½ day working at home. Clark Pest Control showed up at 3:30 and the inspector told me that it wasn't mice or rats. What then? Well he'd have to look under a magnifying glass to tell me for sure but it was either lizards or bats. Great! Both of those creatures are excellent to have around. Right now we have so many frogs and lizards in the yard and coming into the house that we don't have much of a bug problem. We've had bats in the barn but very few. I'm happy no matter if it's lizards or bats. Make more piles. I'll be happy to clean up your mess!
I did get a tick on me two nights ago. I've never had ticks here, just like I've never had fleas. But a tick was on my back nevertheless. I had walked from the house to the barn and back to the house. I picked it up somewhere. Since pest control was here I told him about the tick. He has some sort of rosemary oil organic pellets that he spread on the back lawn. It smelled great. He said we could use it for dinner seasoning, although he'd rather use it on the lawn.
I need to get flea and tick collars for the animals. I've never needed them before but I suppose we do now. I'll check into organic, home made as that's better for long term storage. I suppose we can sew them up something nice that can hold rosemary and other plants on their collar and let them eat brewers yeast.
Bats are great until they are huge numbers! That of course could be my own freaked out childhood memories though. When I was 4 we had droppings and finally heard scratching in the walls. Assuming it was mice my father took a corner off the outside to peak in and there were droppings piled to high to see into the wall so he and friends pulled the walls off in sheets. Hundreds of bats had nested in the walls. Still has me terrified of them to this day, lol. Glad you have a more positive out look though!
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