Mighty Mouses

I remember some cartoon character from my childhood who had a running war on with some mice, and he used to rage "I hate those meeces - to pieces!" There seems to be a lot of Meece-hating coming on in these parts. Personally, I do occasionally contemplate getting a couple official barn cats - but it's all talk. I surprised a little mouse in my feed room the other day and felt badly for startling him so, if that gives you any idea how harmless I am about it all.

I was shaped early on, I suppose. When I was about 5, my mom opened the oven door a couple days after Thanksgiving to do something with her turkey roasting pan that had been left in there. There in the grease congealed in the pan were little tiny footprints, leading to the middle of the pan, where a little tiny mouse sat, clearly thinking himself in mouse heaven. My dad was in favor of gassing him, I think, but my mom is a TREMENDOUS sap about any living creature, and thought he was too cute to kill. I don't remember how it ever turned out - if the mouse was smart he took off out of there for safer environs - but that story was told so often throughout my childhood it must have affected my judgment towards our Rodentia brothers and sisters.

The farmers hereabout had no such upbringing, apparently. My daughter, the combine driver, came home and informed me that since combining season was over, she was being shifted into mousebeating. Or at least I thought that was what she said, which sounded decidedly unAmerican to me. What she actually said was mouse-baiting, which as it turns out isn't much better. It apparently involves walking the fields in search of mouse holes and stuffing bad things down in them designed to lead, I am afraid, to a frank reduction (not mere relocation) of the small rodent population.

I understand the realities of agriculture. I do. I promise. This is why I was not in favor of naming calves that were destined to be hamburgers and steaks in a few months. I mean, could you eat something you had bottle fed? And named CHUCK for pity sake?? That is sick. Funny, admittedly, but twisted. I understand that cattle are raised because I like my burgers, and that fuzzy little chicks become lovely rosemary chicken. I just don't want to be the instrument of death, thank you very much. I cheered at the movie Chicken Run.

And I likewise understand that mice eat tender little growing things, and when growing things is your livelihood, war against rodents is appropriate. But I am a closet anarchist. So I have a plan.

I am going to infiltrate the farm office in the dead of night, wearing my special night vision goggles and my black long-sleeved John Denver Homegrown Tomatoes T-shirt. Then I am going to find all these little devices for stuffing bad things into mouse holes, and I am going to, shall we say, modify them. With tasty treats, something that makes little mouse mouths water, whatever that is (some research is needed here). I figure, if they have something yummy in their tummy they will be less likely to go after crops, right? Maybe slip a little Benadryl in there too, so they eat and drop off into a nice long sleep. So everyone thinks their absence is attributable to having gone to the great mouse beyond.

I think this is a stellar plan. Way more practical than my original plan of broadcasting some sort of RUN FOR YOUR LIVES kind of message, since there is a bit of a language barrier.

What I really need to know is - will you visit me in jail!?

Holy Guano, Batman!!

So, there is more than a little poetic justice in our latest adventure on the farm. This will become clear, so bear with me dear readers.

On our property we have this really interesting structure of some historical significance, a nut-drying barn which was used by filbert farmers in the area back in the day, I assume before they started drying nuts however they currently dry nuts, about which I know absolutely nothing. Anyway, this barn is about 3 stories high, the bottom level being on the ground (go figure) and you can sort of drive under it, like garage bays sort of. There is this huge brick column from the ground up that was apparently where they made a fire or did whatever cool thing they did to create heat. Upstairs in the 2d story, there is a big room with a central core of closets with a door on each end. There are like 4 or 5 doors in a row on opposite sides of the core, in other words, and if you open one you can see through to the other door on each compartment. There were wire racks which fit into grooves or something, like shelves, and progressed through the drying closet, drying the nuts on the rack. This room has a very high ceiling, not sure why, but it is a really cool old barn. Just want you picturing its scenic loveliness.

I have been in this barn multiple times when I came out to see the property, to have my husband see it, after we moved here, etc. Pretty much the same experience every time - like a trip back in time, a little dark in there, like the shadows held secrets, but not in a creepy way at all.

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW.

So, my husband comes in a week or so ago and informs me there are bats in the barn. In general, this is not an earth-shaking pronouncement. I mean, we had decided to put up bat boxes on like the garage roof line or somewhere, to help control insects. And barns are sort of bat magnets anyway, right? So he asks me if I want to go see the bats, and I say sure. I mean, how creepy can it be, right? It's broad daylight, and bats sleep in the day, and all that.

So he brings this industrial strength flashlight and off we go. When we enter the big nut-drying room, something gets startled (OK, it was a BAT) and flies suddenly around in circles. This startles me, and I make a noise. OK, yes it did vaguely resemble a scream, I will admit it. This was the wrong response, because apparently if there is something bats are startled by in the middle of the day more than light it is screaming women. Even short, controlled, polite screams.

So suddenly there was one hell of a lot of activity in that nut-drying room, and as my husband played the flashlight beam upward across the rafters, I could see them. HOARDS of them. Like, a thousand maybe. OK, a hundred, but a hundred bats seems like a thousand in close quarters, let me tell you. And I could see their pointy little faces, and they have TEETH, and oversize ears, and despite being rather fascinating in a grotesque way they were undeniably creepy.

But in the midst of all this excitement, looking at the rows of bats hanging upside down from my barn rafters, with little high pitched noises (I can hear dog whistles, my husband has trouble with freight trains, so he was not as creeped out by this) by both the bats and yours truly, in the very midst of all of this, it occurs to me -- don't their ankles hurt? I mean if I had ears the size of Texas and a head as big as a third of the rest of my body, and I hung upside down all day, my ankles would be killing me. Do bats even HAVE ankles? I do not know this.

My second thought, less esoteric and more practical, was of Jim Carrey. Why anyone confronted with something a little horrifyingly creepy would think of Jim Carrey is an interesting psychological query, but specifically I thought of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective: When Nature Calls (no rash judgments on my taste in movies, please, I was dragged there by a friend) which had a subplot involving large quantities of guano. And I am imagining how my lovely old historical barn is going to look festooned with bat guano. And I am not liking it.

So if anyone out there has a good and reasonably humane way of convincing a large-ish number of bats to vacate the premises, please DO TELL. My screaming apparently isn't enough.

Oh - and that poetic justice? You're kidding. Bats in the belfry? ME???