Voles

When we moved in to our old farm house in 1955 it was over run with mice. The barns were over run with rats. We had a cat who sat on the dresser in my bedroom at night and caught mice all night long. Mice were always in the house somewhere even though we always had cats.

Jasper with a fresh kill. He is one of seven cats that live both inside and outside my house.



My ex husband and I  built our house thirteen years ago about 1/4 of a mile off the road in a wooded site that used to be the site of a former house and barn.  Our house is actually on the barn site and the ruined foundations of the old 1820's house still exist just west of the house.  I was amazed when we moved in at the number of mice in the yard - it was heavily wooded and mice were everywhere - but not in the house itself. The house is all brick and sits high on its foundation. I've never,ever had a mouse in this house.

Vole up near the porch ceiling hanging on to the brick. He is about five inches long, much bigger than a mouse but smaller than a rat.



Last night as I was putting cats out for the evening, I noticed they were trying to crawl up the side of the porch - without success, I might add.  I looked up to see what was catching their interest and there was a vole - not a mouse - a vole desperately running across the brick at the ceiling line.  I'd never seen such a thing.  But it was evident that the heavily textured brick gave the vole great foot holds.  I snapped the picture above, turned out the porch light and went to bed.

The above picture is a mouse. It's small and we have lots of them in the yard.  I never really thought about their being both mice and voles until the cats starting catching voles.  I looked voles up on the Internet and found that they burrow in the ground and eat plant roots.  They sound worse than chipmunks, which we don't seem to have.  Anyway, I wondered why my perennial flowering plants seem to die out each winter.  Now I know why.  The voles eat the roots all winter as they live cosily under the back porch in underground burrows.  That is probably why the cats bring me at least one dead vole - and sometimes a mouse - every day.  Hooray for cats and their killing instincts!!!!