Something funky moved into the compost pile a few nights
ago.
I know, I know, "funky" is the definition of a
compost pile; it's where all the funkiest bits of old cheese, wilted lettuce,
garden weeds, horse bedding, rotten tomatoes, avocado skins, and anything else
we consider inedible goes. In the process of processing, the pile gets funkier
and funkier until, suddenly one day, it's not funky at all, but - plant food!
In the meantime, it attracts all kinds of critters. Field
mice love it, making its periphery one of the furry critters' favorite hunting
grounds. Chipmunks have been known to over-winter under it. The deer pretty
much ignore it, but one year, when my compost pile was reined in by a fence of
chicken wire, we got up one morning to find one side completely smashed down -
the perfect imprint of the visiting bear's butt left behind after she sat on
the fence and noshed from the center.
The current compost pile is fancier, don'cha know. The
across-the-street, off-inland-island neighbors replaced their partly-rotted
picket fence a few years back, and parts of that fence first became a cover for
our kitchen wart's legs, and have now recycled again to become a very
garden-chic, slightly tilted box for the compost pile to reside and do its
funky thing in.
Last year was a boom year for field mice. For whatever reason,
the Mouse Star was in ascendance, and mice had lots of babies - lots and lots
of babies. There were mice in the barn-like-structure, mice in the garden, mice
in the compost, mice in the woodpile, and mice - enough to keep Catman and
Beastreau busy all day every day all winter - in the cellar. I fished several
drowned mice out of the bird bath before I got smart enough to put a rock into
it so they could haul themselves out after a refreshing swim. Brother says he's
trapped more than 250 mice in a few months at his place down the road, and he's
repaired customer's cars all winter and spring and still into this summer which
have mouse damage (they chew through the electric wires - big trouble). When I dumped my potato grow-bags last
summer, I found a mouse nest in one, full of just-born, little soft,
delicately-colored baby mice. Momma Mouse was nowhere in sight, so I scooped
them and their nest into a turned-on-its-side flower pot, put a wob of straw in
the opening, and turned it so the furries would be less likely to be able to
get into it. Two days later, the flower pot was empty of mice and there was no
sign of cat invasion, so Momma Mouse must have moved her brood - probably into
my cellar.
The mouse explosion has attracted hungry critters we rarely
see much of. A handsome fox spent most of the spring hanging out on the frozen
pond next to our barn-like structure, and we still see it passing through,
usually with mouse in mouth, headed for the kits in its den, I presume. A week
or so ago, the near-by-neighbors' head's-up phone-each-other network reported a
fisher cat sighting. Fishers eat mice - and rabbits and porcupines and other
small and medium-sized mammals - and there are plenty of mice to make a
fisher-feast.
The Husband came into the house one morning, a few days ago,
to tell me, "Something has dug up the compost pile." Okay, deep breath - he doesn't really mean
"dug it up." Probably. "So - the bear's been into it?" I
moderated.
"Oh, no, this is something living in it. It kicked all
the compost out onto the lawn."
Girding my loins for battle, I went out for a look-see.
Indeed, something large - larger than a mouse, larger than a chipmunk, smaller
than a bear - had tossed three perfect piles of compost, about a gallon each,
out of each of the three sides of the compost bin not facing the garden, making
perfect little foot-high pyramids; and on the garden side, facing the peach
tree and pea fence, was a lovely 3-inch by 2-inch oval entry hole near the top.
Too big for the usual suspects; too small for a fisher cat.
Hmph. "Well, at least we can see that the compost is
actually working this summer,"
the Husband noted. "This stuff it tossed out is completely broken down and
usable." Hmph. This I was going to have to think about. Make a mess in my
compost pile --- grrr.
I called Brother, who spent his early years trapping and
hunting. He had a few ideas - most emphatically, that I should be setting some
mouse traps or get a couple dozen more cats. The Tall Dude, who used to own a
commercial organic farm, had no ideas, but did tell me what was chopping my
bean plants off a foot above the ground and then leaving the tops, uneaten, to
turn into mulch . "Birds," he said. "They're going after bugs on
the stems, and nipping the whole thing off to get the bug. But that's not what
made the den in your compost." No kidding - though I'd kinda like to see a
bird that could do that. I think.
The Husband tossed the removed compost back into the bin,
and next day it was all back out again. It looked like there were extra exit
places just under the fence bottoms, between the slats. What the heck was this thing that didn't mind having
its den tossed upon?
That night I got a pretty good clue. When I was letting the
dog-boys out for their last evening pee, a breeze carried a very strong, very
familiar scent with it. What is that
smell? I know that smell!
It's...it's...it's...a-ha!
Many years ago, one of my t'ai chi students kept pet
ferrets. She had three, which lived in a long, interconnected set of cages that
included pipes to slink through and slides and hidey-holes and hammocks and all
sorts of stuff to entertain these busy, curious critters. When she was home,
she'd sometimes let them out of their cage, and they'd go all over the house,
carrying treasures off to hiding places, exploring bureau drawers, getting into
and onto and under anything they could reach, which was pretty much everything.
One day, while she was at work, they figured out how to unlatch their cage, and
by the time she got home, they'd managed to open the refrigerator and take out
of it every single item, including milk bottles and other large items.
The
tasty stuff they ate or drank or hid away for later; the stuff that made good
toys, they played with, then hid it away for later. The stuff they weren't interested
in, they hid away for later. For weeks and months afterwards she found eggs in
her sock drawer, a mustard bottle in the bedclothes, apples behind the washing
machine, the empty milk carton (they'd drunk up the spilled milk) behind the
couch, mayonnaise under the woodstove, carrots in a dozen interesting places
including inside the washing machine, celery in her hamper - you get the idea.
These pets were fairly friendly and would slip up your pants leg or shirt
sleeve to see where it went, if you were visiting and not paying them enough
attention. But mostly - they had a very distinctive smell - sort of musky and
perfumey-sharp at the same time. The same smell that my t'ai chi sword
scabbard, which is leather and rubbed with mink oil, has. The same smell that
came to me on the breeze that night.
Back in the truly Dark Ages, there was a mink farm in
Wilmot, and ever since then, a mink or two will be spotted here or there in one
of the waterways or another in Wilmot Center.
Ferrets, and minks, and weasels, and otters, are all related, and
cousins share that distinctive, funky smell - which I like, though many folks
don't. We live on an inland island, surrounded by moving water, which all these
critters want to be near. A nice, soft, warm den, with a patio facing
multiple(fast food) mouse houses, and
bi-weekly home delivery of exotic food bits , sounds like a perfect
summer cottage for a slinky, funky, hungry traveler.
I haven't caught sight of our new resident, and may never. I
have had a stern conversation with
the four-footed guys who live with us: Stay away! Don't chase! Keep your snoots
to yourselves! There are enough mice for everyone! And extra warnings to the
cat people, just in case I'm wrong about the size hole a fisher would need - we
don't want any dust-ups.
But I haven't said a word about it to the Mouse Colony.
Originally printed in The
Concord Monitor, July 21, 2016, as “The
Critter in the Compost.”
Artwork by Debra
Marshall, c 2016
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