Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Heebie-Jeebies, Arg!!@#!@

I caught a vole. eeeehhhh. (I can't write the noise I'm making right now). The thing is, we noticed a small part of our yard had been "voled" but it wasn't bad at all and didn't stay, and you can't even see the remnants of it in our yard any more (lucky us). But this morning, I was up early to go water my garden, and at the bottom of my cement stairs, just out my door, was this little guy just looking up at me. When he saw that I saw him, he ran into our rain gutter (currently laying on the ground) and then jetted from there to under our stair steps...under the cement. Ok...look up on the internet..."how to get rid of voles." Have a few ideas, but really, that's the hubby's job (thank goodness for men).

Well, my kiddos were playing in the backyard, and Isabel says "MOM--there's a rat in our rain gutter." Evidently the little vole-guy likes to hang out in it. I said "Step away and be calm." I got a plate, put it on the opposite side of the gutter, and picked the gutter up...trapping the little scurrying thing. And it was scurrying, and my insides were quaking. I'm not good with things like this. I'll kill a little spider with a shoe, but anything bigger FORGETABOUTIT!! So, there I stood with a plate and a rain gutter and our furry friend inside. Thank goodness there was no way he was getting enough traction to climb up my vertical trap. "What next?" I'm thinking. "Jim will just have to come home from work! Plain and simple." No, we have a neighbor that can handle this and he's often home in the day-time. "Isabel--go get Todd next door." Phew--he was home and Todd was my hero today! He took the plate and the rain gutter and walked off cool as can be... This is why I'm so glad for MEN... (one of the many reasons)...but PHEW!!!

Yes, my skin is still crawling and I can barely hit the letters on the keyboard correctly. Ick! Now...if our little (hopefully dead) furry friend he has friends.....
Rory just said "That's cute...can we someday buy one" UM NO!

8 comments:

Moose and Family said...

I have never even heard of a vole before. We once had a family of skunks move in under our house. Now THAT was icky!! Good job on being brave! :)

Evan and Rebecca Jones said...

How funny! This sort of thing totally happened to me. Good for you for even picking the thing up!! Last week Evan was out of town and there was this AWFUL looking spider in our house. I can't handle anything like that either. So I went and got our neighbor who came over and picked the thing up with his bare hands!!

Thank goodness for neighbors!

Summmack said...

I agree with Rory he is cute and you should buy one;) Too bad you just didn't save the one you caught and then you could have gotten it for free! J/K I hate rhodents, gald you got rid of it!!!

Unknown said...

I loved reading that, I think most of us have a story like that! I think I would rather have your vole then my mites, though! Yours is bigger and easier to get rid of, I think. Hope he does not have any friends! By the way, I am currently a mouse trapper...they are coming from my neighbors and hanging out in our yard! Arrrghhhh!

Unknown said...

oh man those things are so obnoxious! the year we put in our entire back yard full of nice new sod - a few of them tore up the area near our fence. ug. nate actually tried the caddy shack thing of putting the hose in one of the holes. he left it for an hour! and nothing.....

so we went to home depot and bought some little gas bomb things. you should try those. they are great. you just light the fuse and put it in the hole and cover it with dirt and it just uses a gas to fill the entire tunneling system & then ummmmm well they die.

try that. it works.

The Gatherum Clan! said...

Ok, that was funny---and icky, I agree. I'm proud of you! I think I would have just told the kids they had to come inside! :) Way to go!!

Cindy Reed said...

How funny! Yay for brave neighbors! We JUST found out yesterday that we have voles, too! I've never heard of them until we moved here. We saw all of their little tunnels running all through our yard. Well, today, Paul was outside and saw TWO of them run under the big rocks we have. So...needless to say, we've got to figure out how to trap and kill those little guys before they eat our garden and ruin the yard. Ick!

Todd and Lisa said...

Those voles are so Nasty!! we bought those spikes to put in the yard. TRhey emit a signal. They really creep me out.