The seven bird feeders in my garden attract sparrows, finches, doves, chickadees, cedar waxwings, nuthatches, squirrels who hang upside down like acrobats on the feeders, a pair of mallards who fly in to graze beneath the large feeder in the front yard and mice who scavenge the leftovers.

The mice population in my garden is now thriving.

I recently pulled out an old begonia plant from a large pot on my porch to replace it and a mouse jumped out. Holy crap! I don’t know who was more startled, me or the mouse. She ran one way and I ran the other. Perhaps the nice little mouse was napping in the planter. But no. Once I pulled the spent begonia out of the pot, I turned the soil over and came across a batch of leaves. That’s weird.  I looked closer and noticed movement. Five baby mice were tucked into the leaves. Frightened, the mother mouse had jumped shipped. With my trowel, I carefully lifted the babies out in their nest of leaves and placed them under a nearby bush. Hopefully the mother found them.

One morning sitting by the window with my journal and hot tea, I watched mice scurry from under the bromeliads surrounding the large pepper tree in my garden, quick as lightning. One at a time they ran out to snag a sunflower seed from under the birdfeeder, then dashed back to their hiding place beneath the bromeliads. 

My garden is organic. I don’t use poisons or insecticides on my plants. But, truthfully, the flourishing mice population freaked me out. I imagined an army of mice running into every open door of my home, and against my better judgement, I set a bait station.

That was short lived, thank goodness.

A few days later, I saw a mouse lying in front of my fountain. He was panting, barely alive. The next morning he was gone. He had been poisoned and another animal or bird had eaten him and most likely gotten sick as well. What was I thinking? I took the bait station up immediately and will never use one again.

I really don’t mind mice in the garden, I just don’t want to encourage them. I now keep the seeds raked up beneath the feeders. The few stray seeds that remain are fair game for the birds, squirrels, ducks and mice.

We have become nonchalant about the poisons used to keep our manicured lawns perfect, to kill insects on our selected plants, keeping them unblemished, and to kill field mice trying to survive in a place without fields. The poisons don’t stop there. They end up in the air, the water and carried from one living thing to another.

I planted a fall crop of broccoli and Swiss chard in my raised beds recently. This morning I found that a resident rabbit had nibbled all the leaves from one of the new Swiss chard plants. I’m waiting for fencing to arrive to protect the plants from critters, but in the meantime, it makes me happy to know the bunny’s breakfast was healthy, organic and poison free. I can always add a new plant.