On the Fence

Spring seems so close, and yet it's difficult to tell considering the types of Spring we've had in the last few years.  The chickens are back to laying full-time, but the air still stings.  We alternate back and forth between waterproof boots and chipping ice.  The sweet smell of manure is the only thing strong enough to be noticed in this type of air, but that itself is a welcoming signal of the explosive life that's coming.  But everyone's hungry.  We're out of squash, sweet potatoes, soon to be out of white potatoes, and tomatoes are gone to name a few.  We still have fish, 2 chickens, a rabbit, some beef, and loads of garlic, but that doesn't leave us much diversity, or vegetables.  The mice are hungry, because they're back to gnawing what they can find in the hoophouse, or at least I thought they were mice.  I also found what was left of a rabbit- the back paws and spine, along with tufts of fur strewn about just outside the garden fence. 

The picture above is of a (dead) meadow vole.  This unfortunate little one was killed in one of my fancy-pants traps that I wrote about recently.  While I was in the hoophouse today, I saw another one staring right at me, and a much smaller scurrier fleeing the scene which was possibly a baby meadow vole, or an actual field mouse.  We learned today that they can have something like 10 litters a year, can start reproducing at one month of age, and reproduce faster and more than any other mammal on the planet.  They also go through 3-4-year boom/bust cycles.  This doesn't bode well for the coming spring, but I'm not giving up before we even start!