Much is made about the fall. Romantic notions abound. Perhaps we have held fast to our hopes over the summer, and we see fall as the season when they ripen, ready for harvest. Authors pen about the golden glory that is the harvest. A pregnant moon rises slowly over the horizon, perhaps a little too swollen and exhausted to rise any faster. These events inspire us. Move us to action. Writers put pen to paper in the evenings. Wildlife knows this too. Even farm boys, the wildest of wildlife, normally exhausted from chores, will get out to go shine some deer, maybe leave a little rubber on the roads… no one knows for sure, farm boys can be elusive. In the meantime, we gloss over the other great harvest that is going on.
Mice. Fall is not only the time of Harvest Moons and Waving Grains, it is the time of the Great Mouse Immigration. And for those of you fortunate enough to question that last sentence, let me explain. For the rest of us, who live in the country, who live in true country homes, we know too well the annual waves of mice that inundate our basements, attics, walls, kitchens, spoon drawers. God, why the spoons? Why, of all the fascinations of the house, why do mice feel particularly inspired to explore our silverware drawer? Just one nocturnal reconnaissance will necessitate cleaning of the whole drawer, every last spoon, fork and knife; because you know they just crawled all over each and every one. Maybe you trapped that particular offender, and confident, placed your silverware back in its rightful place, only to find the next morning, more mouse sign. Eventually, you wave the white flag, and the silverware finds a new home on a counter top. There, mine has been unmolested for several falls.
My own harvest this fall has yielded exactly 31 mice. Nine of these were House Mice, Mus musculus, the remainder have been the White Footed or Deer Mouse, Peromyscus leucopus and Peromyscus maniculatus. These came in three waves, and I expect two more waves before the snow flies, which usually signals the end of the mass immigration. House mice are a tawny grey color all over and have a particular odor, especially where they congregate. Whitefooted and deer mice are two toned- brown on top with white bellies, and have the press of being “cuter than house mice, because of their larger eyes and ears”. Surely, those words were penned in an urban home with modern construction techniques and an inexplicable absence of mice. Although, I will allow, that once, I found a deer mouse that had been stealing dog treats from a box on the countertop. Caught in the act, he paused for a moment, a bone shaped dog treat in his mouth, impersonating a miniature German Shepherd. Ironically, he had the same guilty look on his face as my dogs do when they have stolen food.
This year’s particular harvest has been abundant so far. Four years ago, it was a very light year- not more than 10 mice, which I suspect is related to the fact that the oak trees surrounding my home were heavily laden with acorns. Their abundant mast provided a more enticing smorgasbord than my humble kitchen pantry. Alas, nature is full of checks and balances, so the following fall, I paid for that respite with the largest mouse harvest I have ever had. I stopped counting at 50. Apparently, the mice, gorged on acorns, butternuts, hickory nuts and fungus, survived the winter in splendid flesh, and being mice, they did what they do and bred like mad. Checks and balances again, my farm cats spent that fall in very good flesh themselves. A mouse tossed out of the house was eyeballed lazily before one corpulent feline would settle upon their breakfast; suggesting that this was perhaps only a postprandial lagniappe?
