We Might Need To Fire The Gardeners!

This week's spring weather has given me a chance to do a little 
garden clean-up.


Trimming bushes and raking leaves around the house...
and the guest house...


getting ready to mulch the gardens and plant flowers.


It seems that lately, the gardeners have made a mess of the flower beds.


Our five randy Roos have a habit of digging up the mulch and scattering it willy-nilly.

This band of rogue garden-destroyers lives in a little chicken house about half way
down our driveway.


The chicken house on the right is the bachelor pad,
where the roos roost at night.
The house on the left is our brooder house and will be home to 40 newly hatched chicks
who are scheduled for arrival next week.

During the daytime the roos have the run of the farm...


strutting their stuff and generally creating havoc.
I have to say... I do love the sound of roosters crowing...
but would love to find a way to keep them out of our gardens
and off our front porch furniture!
(We are going to try installing gates on the entries to our decks.)

Yesterday while assessing the condition of the brooder house,
I found this....


I didn't have the heart to disturb it...
knowing that its contents would look just like this...


Oh, it seems we are destined to have an abundance of moussies this Spring!

Many farmers would put rogue rooster gardeners in the stew pot;
and nests of baby mice would meet their demise.
But, I just cannot bring myself to intervene.
After all...isn't this world big enough for all of us?

Comments

Glad I'm not the only softie!

Kathy from Tasmania
jaz@octoberfarm said…
hahaha...no free ranging humans? you have to gate yourselves in?
colleen said…
Looks like your clean up is coming along nicely...we are STILL buried in snow. roos will be roos.. Doug, my husband ( I always share your blog with him to) kind of chuckled about the gates to the decks and said "I wonder how that will work"? Guess he knows a bit about roos. We wouldn't disturb the mice OR put any rogue roo in the pot either!! Some call us crazy but that's just the way it is. Love, Love, Love the slouchy hat!! Where did you get the pattern? Thanks for the tips on the fairy garden. I wrote the names of the plants down and it gives me something to start with.If all goes well with it this year...maybe a bigger one next year. Thanks a million for your inspiration!!
Candice said…
I love that you and Hubbs are the kind of farmers who appreciate the lives of all of God's creatures. Mother Nature (or the barn cats) will let nature take its course, but until then, your sweet picture of those baby mice is precious.
Candice said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said…
I would have to think long and hard about letting the mousies remain. We, however.... don't seem to have any and I think it's probably because of a high snake population here... or hawks, or owls. Not sure why.
This N That said…
Those mousies will probably disappear naturally .".Let nature take it's course"..It's amazing how clean things are starting to look after all that rain..More on it's way, I hear..Enjoy todays' short lived sun...
Junebug said…
I have the same problem with my back patio. My hens think it belongs to them. I can close them into the side yard when I have friends over for a BBQ. Just remember the height of the gate is important. Yes, they can fly over!! Mice are mice, here kitty, kitty!!!
Chickens love to kill and eat mice, so just think of it as a free meal.
Cherity said…
I'm the same way, unless something is truly hurting something--for example a groundhog who refused to relocate and kept digging "leg breaker" holes in my horses field--I am all about live and let live. This philosophy has resulted in a family of skunks living under one of our outbuildings. I've always love skunks (I mean it; they're adorable), but I have to admit, those guys make me a little nervous.
mrscravitz said…
Oh Boy! TWO mousey nests now. I too could not disturb them! You will have quite the mice population!
Anonymous said…
The destroyers are so beautiful though.... Would love to have chickens but the town does not allow them even if we have 2 acres...As for mice? we have them in our basement but we have a snake living down there, to the great delight of our grandchildren , so they have become less of a problem(the mice I mean LOL) but replaced by another!!!!! This is country living after all!!!

Annie v.
Anonymous said…
Don't we all go through this dilemma? We've had gophers excavating under our concrete driveway, rats in the attic, mice destroying everything in the pantry, skunks under the house, rabbits eating everything in sight.
If they would only stay away from us....we all would 'let them be'.....I just hate having to kill these creatures too and always wait until.....ok, that's it.....something has to go...... It's a tough world sometimes. Thanks for
sharing ......
Laura Sudderth said…
I love this post....yes it is big enough for all of us.
deodar said…
I'm glad I'm not the only one - I take a lot of harassment for live trapping mice when they get in my house and releasing them outside. (Really!)