Mouse Seeds

I convinced Patches the cat that she should spend more time in the greenhouse, thinking she might be the better mouse trap I'd been hoping for. She would actually rather sleep all day, but she reluctantly agreed to spend some time in there with me as I set about planting more seeds to replace those destroyed by mice last week.

She looked like she was enjoying herself- staring intently all around the pots, creeping stealthily along the staging. Every once in a while, she would stop, her eyes fixed intently, as though she was about to pounce. (Notice the dead brown leaves on the lantana? I'm reluctant to prune anything for fear mice will come pouring out of the pots again and run up my arms).

But alas, Patches was just pretending to be interested in eradicating the dastardly little rodents. Or maybe she's just getting too slow for such tasks in her old age. As it turns out, she is not a better mouse trap at all. There are still mice in the greenhouse, as I discovered when I went to open the greenhouse this morning.

There on the bench were what had once been peat pots. They must have been very tasty peat pots, because something had nibbled ragged holes in them-a LOT of holes! The culprits left other signs of their nocturnal nastiness, too: there were what appeared to be mouse droppings all over the potting bench. But there were so many mouse droppings! And then I saw it- a seed packet, left on the bench - its edges gnawed and torn, its contents scattered. I had forgotten to put it away. But wait- are those seeds or are they something else? I had never noticed before how much chive seeds and mouse droppings resemble each other! There's no telling what might pop up in the seed flats now. Or how many mouse droppings I've already planted!