I realize that it has been almost two months since I have blogged and there is a very good reason for that. I saw a mouse. Now, I actually don’t mind mice, as pets, but when I see them run out of the English Ivy and the Wisteria that is attached to your house, that is a different story.

Several years back, we planted a wisteria vine/bush in our front yard, thinking that it would be a beautiful addition to the yard. It was. However, after many years of trimming it back and trying to keep it under control, the beast just began to take over the yard. Add to that the brilliant idea one of us had to plant English Ivy as ground cover (very quickly becoming house cover) and you get the picture of what happened next.

Forward to this spring when out of the ivy came a very large mouse. So large, in fact, that I was not completely sure it was not a small rat. It was adorable, but then it reproduced. The two babies were even more cute, but we knew then that they all had to go. Somehow, via that special radar that only snakes have, they started to arrive to attempt to consume the mice. Ok, there were only two very small rat snakes (non venomous) and they were each spotted on separate weeks, but still, that was enough to indicate that a change was needed.

We began removing the ivy and wisteria from the farthest out vines, working our way toward the main root systems of each, all the while decreasing the living space for the mouse and her family. Somewhere along the way, we decided that since we were already doing this major overhaul to our yard that we would go ahead and pursue our long time vision of a water garden in our yard someday.

As we began to plan that and remove the invasive plants and animals around the house, the water garden project took on a life of it’s own and the change in the yard has already been amazing. You can see a very short video about the plan here. We were able to capture the baby mice and relocate them. Momma mouse was reduced to a very small area and she finally disappeared, along with any more snake sightings. I am so much happier with the yard now and really look forward to sharing our progress as we move forward with this project. For now, enjoy the photos and stay tuned.