I Love Mice... a fable

So sang, or rather said, rhythm ploddingly, assertive, Ivor Cutler, my poetic, Scots, hero. On the subject of mice and their obvious loveliness, I remain ambivalent. It’s a seasonal thing.

Where to start? Spring perhaps? The eternal optimist, my growing season starts in late January. In my unheated greenhouse I sow mange tout peas, lettuce, French beans. Outside, in my raised bed I risk broad beans, the Sutton. Protecting my investment with rolls of fleece, I unwittingly provide cover to my rodent pals. Freed from ariel predation, they run riot. Premature germination: Not a bean; Peas not a pod; lettuce, you can’t even get me to eat lettuce, nothing. Scotsmen don’t do salad.

Moving forward some time, my tomatoes, although not quite as high as an elephant’s eye, are doing all right. Unfortunately the same can not be said of myself. I had a minor mountaineering accident, with Harry. Descending a steep gravel path my balance deserted me. I dived headlong into a patch of gorse. This slowed my fall although rather painfully. Harry now refuses to walk in front of me while coming down a hill. Sympathy! Anyway, apart from picking up a deer tick or two, it seems I’d ricked my back. Purely muscular, I’d hoped. Returning to my tomatoes, well on the way to recovery, some days later, I decided to tie them in, bending. The agony, almost as excruciating as a sting from a weaver fish, or, as a Greek, male, doctor, once explained to me, as painful as childbirth. Spared the need of a qualified midwife, I decided not to go out and actively garden. Is wildlife gardening simply neglect? I relax uncomfortably. I observe, I reflect, I feed and support my resident animals, my biological cousins. Our DNA unites us.

Thus incapacitated, midsummer day, I watch the field mice at my back door. They’re beautiful, utterly perfect. I only feed the mealworms within a metre of the house to discourage the magpies. Occasionally, although, predictably, a very small animal, black of body, pink snout, little bigger than a large bumblebee, scurries across, within inches of my back door. Something so small, seemingly oblivious to my vast bulk. Immobility, many animals only detect movement. Once one scurried right over my boots. A non-rodent, maybe my favourite. Are pygmy shrews vegetarians or omnivores? They do me no harm. I think they live under the protection of my dwarf campanula and eat the leaves of my French beans. And, why not? Perhaps they’re vegans without attitude. If, indeed, there is such a thing. Returning to my muse, Ivor, he once sagely observed “rats, a different kettle of fish, faces ain’t so friendly”. We humans instinctively hate rats, social, intelligent, voracious, greedy. Rats simply remind us of ourselves. Things that rustle rather loudly in the night. A mouse once got trapped in a cul de sac above our bedroom, and, scrabble, as it might, quietly, after three days, it slowly expired. We couldn’t save it. The rat, on the other hand roamed freely around our home. How dare he/she? Entitled bastard! We, albeit reluctantly, resorted to poison. Nefarious nighttime activity dwindled to nothing. We won! Hold on! Not so fast. An unpleasant and increasing odour began to permeate our house. To smell a rat! Ancient sayings are firmly based in truth. We searched the house, utility room, getting closer, warmer, smell insufferable. Eventually, inspired, I think, I moved the automatic washing machine away from the wall. There it was, curled in silent repose, post-coital bliss, stinking! I wondered whether it had selected this spot, a dying wish in order to enjoy some final sexual gratification from the 1400rpm spin cycle. We’ll never know.

Back to my mice. I’ve fed them. I’ve fattened them up. I love them still. It’s a spiritual experience. A bonding. November approaches. Happy and supported by a large family and my largesse. It’s getting colder. We approach a turning point. They come, somehow, into our kitchen and nibble daintily at left over crumbs, crumbs we’d never have missed. Mouse poo we can’t ignore! Snap! Guiltily I extract my former pals from the spring traps. Backs broken, pathetic, bent, heads crushed, in a their mere justifiable struggle to survive…..

I’m seriously conflicted…..