Nope…Not yet
On another nerve-wracking subject VOLES!!!
So, I was feeling all smug and proud of myself because I had a greenhouse full of healthy greens going. The new starts were looking quite healthy and the seeds I planted late last fall were several inches tall. I was anticipating my first spring salad when the voles struck. They ate every green right down to soil level. I may need to head down to the local arcade and play a couple of games of Whack-A-Mole to vent my frustrations.
The subject of pest control is an important one and not something I feel all that competent in. I do know I am going to stock up on a whole mess of mouse and rat traps, fly paper and some good fly swatters. Pests can be more than pest if there is a crisis. They can be deadly, either from the diseases they carry or the food they destroy. Can anybody out there recommend a good web site or book on this subject. It’s a real hole in my preparedness library.
I did come up aith a good idea this week. I found myself needing a bucket for rice when I restocked and the ony one I had still had just a little wheat left in it. I was pondering what to do as there was too much wheat for a 1/2 gallon jar. I did find an empty popcorn tin. It was large enough but needed a mylar bad or something similar and I didn’t have one small enough. I finally decided to put four cups of wheat berries in 1 gallon zip-lock bags and layer them in the tin. The size is good as I often grind in just that volume and the tin is rodent proof. I sealed the edge of the lid with some duct tape and it should be bug proof as well. I also found a store that is willing to save some buckets for me. Yeah. I was beginning to think I would have to spend actual money on some.
I had a nice time Saturday night. We went across the street to the community house for our annual Earth Day event. There was lots of good music, good food, great company and I got to speak on food resilient communities. I’m going to post my talk for my blog on Wednesday as I hope to be heavily in Grammy mode by then and not in the mood to think.
The world continues to spin in spite of the spate of dreadful news. I must remember that life is good and blessings are abundant but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to top off a lot of my preps and encourage others to do the same.
March 28, 2011 at 9:12 am
I too have trouble with moles/voles. I put out traps and they just find another place to escape. I get a piece of wood off the pile, or turn the compost, and hear “wee, wee” sounds as they scramble to get away from me. And because they’re blind, they run in every direction. I had one run across my bare foot one day and my scream probably was heard for miles! They must serve some purpose!
March 28, 2011 at 9:14 am
Voles…what a pain! They got into my strawberries last year, taking a bite out of way too many and leaving the rest of a useless berry. I know it’s not a pleasant thing, but have you tried mothballs? Sometimes they keep them away…also a hot pepper spray.
Good luck!
March 28, 2011 at 9:36 am
Rob at One Straw discussed voles in the hoop house a while back. He came up with a good design and technique for dealing with them. He noted that they reproduce logarithmically, so you want to get on top of their population pronto. Search the archives of his site, that should turn up his post on the issue.
March 28, 2011 at 9:47 am
Well so far I have not made it to town. Saturday when dh was to go fishing the other guy backed out. So dh didn’t go fishing. So I canned more meat. Then yesterday he was going but it started snowing. And it was wet and heavy snow. So the boat trailer didn’t want to stay on the road. Needless to say he didn’t go fishing again. My plan is to go to town today for a bit by myself. There is a guy with a rabbit on Craigslist that I am interested in getting. I need to call him this morning to go and see it.
We also found out that Wednesday that Costco will have there fruit trees in the store. So if I don’t make it to town this morning to get the rabbit I will go on Wednesday to get the trees that we want.
March 28, 2011 at 11:05 am
Kathy, on SurvivalBlog.com, there was recently a posting on dealing with rats, which eat the vinyl off of wiring. I think the posting was only a day or so back. These rats are called pack rats because they make nests, chew the wiring, and then there’s a possibility of fire.
March 28, 2011 at 12:23 pm
We had voles in our attic a few years ago. I tried rat traps, but found I could not safely set them (I was worried I would either take off my finger or fall through the ceiling). So we got a hav-a-heart trap and caught the voles in there (and then fed some of them to the biology teacher’s snakes).
March 30, 2011 at 11:25 pm
I would say since this has not been updated that someone has a new grandbaby.
Congradulations.
April 1, 2011 at 11:18 pm
Would a good cat help with the problem? Haven’t seen a mouse around here in ages since we adopted our current cuddly pest control agent.