Compost, thy name is mouse food.

This morning I went out to inspect the garden and decide whether or not I should water. I’m pretty close to giving up this year. So far, I’ve had one tomato. And a zucchini. I have several more zucchini in the works. It’s the star of the garden right now, crowding out the borage and basil sharing its bed. The cabbage is a joke. The tomatoes are a joke. The bell pepper is laughing at me while it struggles with life. The eggplant is flowering the prettiest purple flowers, but I know they will languish as well. So as I stood there, this morning, contemplating life, the universe, and everything in my garden, I saw my neighbor. I wished her happy birthday, and we got to chatting. She very seriously told me, “Amy, I want you to know it’s been a very bad gardening year. Even Jackie has only gotten one tomato so far.”

Now, Jackie is one half of the team of gardening wizards that live two doors down. And if even she of the elite composting setup, drip lines, walls-o-water and fuzzy logic contraptions to keep away varmints isn’t getting tomatoes, there is no hope for me whatsoever.

So my neighbor and I were discussing this when I glanced down and saw something scamper down the fence line toward my compost bin. Admittedly, it wasn’t quite as shocking as seeing it inside, but there it was: a mouse. Running not three feet away from me. My neighbor had warned me we might have mice in the compost, but as I had not seen any there, I dismissed it. I mean, really. We have a cat.

Turns out the cat is mostly useless. I had some idea in my head that just her scent would be enough to keep the icky rodents away. I ordered her to go do something about it, but she yawned and dug in deeper into her nap. She thinks sleeping on her head upside down with her paw over her face is really cute. She practically accosted me this morning insisting on “special food.” Special food is a Saturday ritual, and her geriatric feline brain can’t count to seven any more, so on Tuesdays and Fridays she tries her luck at begging. And this is the thanks I get. John, aka Capital S, ended up giving her some treats. She’s really shattered my image of her.

I looked at the compost bin…which is in the complete wrong place, it is just outside our back door on the other side of the deck rail, and it’s pretty much a big open pit supported by some crumbling lumber and a little chicken wire…and then I saw the mouse run into the bin. And then I started getting double vision and I swooned and threw up. Oh wait. I just saw two mice! And really, I can’t blame them. A big fat smorgasbord of cantaloupe rinds and lettuce leaves, apple cores and broccoli stems. I’m surprised there aren’t more comers. (Except for the squirrel. He’s been visiting too, and in the height of my despair over mice, Carolyn tells me, “I can show you where the squirrel pees!” She is so lovely, really, but I wanted to clobber her.)

Suddenly I stopped caring about being green…in practice, as I was definitely green around the gills. I’ve been skeeved out all morning. I raced over to Home Depot and still feeling ill, chose some traps. Can’t do poison as there are dogs next door. And it’s compost, after all. Unfortunately I am not going into the back yard until December so John is going to have to set the traps for me. And pick the zucchini.

On the way to the store, I was ranting, “Give a mouse a cookie! As if! Disgusting disease carrying rodents! Nothing funny or cute about them!” Carolyn answers, “Okay, mom, I think you’ve made your point.”

“Watch your mouth, young lady. And I haven’t even begun to make my point!” And under my breath: “I can’t believe I liked that book. What happened to our snake? Where has he gone?” We have a garden snake that hangs around the back yard. I am always happy to see him, even if we do startle each other a little bit. If it’s possible to see eye to eye with a reptile, we agree about mice: they are the enemy. Actually, they are his lunch and my enemy.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to close down the compost bin. Our covenants don’t allow open bins like that in sight of other neighbors (although mine wouldn’t care). Maybe we’ll invest in a big green barrel one. We don’t even use the compost we’ve been making for the last 5 years. Well, no more. This year it’s all going to be mixed in to the tomato bed. There’s always next year, and my garden will be abundant! But there’s not enough for the mice too. They’ll have to leave.