October 25

Yesterday’s vole is a reminder that the house will soon start to receive its late fall occupants. With the onset of cold nights, the barn nests are becoming less comfortable, and the field mice (or deer mice) will seek warmer quarters for the winter. I suspect that soon we will hear the scurrying of tiny feet in the wall passages of our old home. We’ve come to accept these autumnal intruders as simply a normal part of the seasonal transition.

Old homes are usually inhabited by all manner of creatures, great and small. The foundations and sills possess the inevitable cracks and holes which provide access to the mice who seek shelter.

This transition will also mean that the cat will be back in business, as the transient mice sometimes wander into the basement. It is always in the middle of the night when we hear the scuffle in the basement and the squeaks of protest when the mice are caught and tossed about.

In mast years, when either the food source has been abundant for the mice, or when the predators have been low, the cat is kept rather busy for the initial months of November and December. We once kept a tally of caught mice, the number having reached in the lower 20s by the time the holidays arrived.

Friends who live in contemporary homes are horrified when they learn of our late autumn tenants. Such is the way of modernity, when newly constructed dwellings are sealed nearly air tight, shutting off the occupants from such surprises.