Oh! Rats!

[skypilot]

Well not quite!    While cleaning up my new lottie, I decided to tackle a compost heap which had seen better days, during this process, I unearthed a minute amount of dry grass like material and some paper. Thinking I had disturbed  a rats nest, I decided not to dig any further.

Today whilst cleaning out a brick bunker containing mildewed and rotten potatoes left by the previous owner (thank you very much ) about a foot or so below this mess, to my surprise I unearthed yet another supply of dried grass and paper. Deciding to brave it this time, I dug what appeared to be a ball of the material up (about the size of a tennis ball ) and tentatively opened it with the prong of the fork . In the centre all curled up was what I took to be a field vole or mouse, it looked quite dead, but it could have been hibernating ( which it possibly was)

Undecided and frustrated as to what to do, I decided to deposit it together with the potatoes on the skip  Now I feel quite guilty and sad 

What would you have done in the circumstances ?

[dibberxxx]

would have ran a mile i dont like rats

[Mrs Ava]

Well, my sad little tale.....last late spring, whilst digging my new number 2 plot, I unearthed lots of dry grass, flipped it onto the top of the soil, and thought nothing of it, carried on digging as you do.  It wasn't until I came back along the row, I turned out some more from below the surface and my dim brain thought....'ooo, what is straw doing beneath the surface.'  I'll tell you what it was doing, it was a moles nursery!  Three little teeny baby moles turfed up in the late spring sunshine!  What to do, what to do!  Well, I carried them to the shadey side of my plot and left them at the bottom of a pile of grass cuttings and walked away.  In the great scheme of things, I figured either mummy mole would come get them and take them beneath ground or slowworm/adder/foxy/magpie would come take them for lunch.  As allotmenteers we are constantly upsetting the balance and then trying to put it right again, so I felt that even if they died and were eaten, they were staying in the food chain and somehow, somewhere, it all works out.....  Does my rambling make sense??  Don't feel sad, when the mice are eating your pea seeds come spring, you will be moaning like hell about them!!! 

[Marianne]

Oh Skypilot, what a sad story.   

But try not to feel guilty, after all, it COULD have been rats and you did the right thing

I myself have killed a bird without realising it and I still can't get it out of my mind, 8 years later !

Good luck with the allotment!

[BAGGY]

We dug up a mouse that was hibernating.  It ran a few feet and then snuffed it.  Must have been the shock.  Yours probably was dead (one way or another).