But I kind of am. I mean, it’s serendipity of a sort. I never have $300 in the bank. Never. Right at the moment it’s closer to $400, raised from generous contributions to the blog and intended for tires – and spent on mouse damage. But I didn’t want to buy tires in the first place.
This is the Secret Lair. It’s the love of my life, the only home I ever built, and for all its flaws it has worked out so well, y’know? But the first thing you notice about it is that there’s something missing. Like an outer skin. And it’s been this way for five years and it’s starting to tell. Plus it’d be a lot warmer if it were complete. That was supposed to happen this year. But it didn’t. Because every time I thought I could make some progress toward raising the money for siding, something broke elsewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t have anything to complain about. Readers have been wonderfully generous this year. The Lair’s batteries went bad: Donations replaced them. The Jeep’s brakes went comically bad: Donations got me back on the road. The Jeep’s tires went bald and into that nail-attracting phase: Donations would have replaced them, except now I’ll be spending that money on engine repairs.
And by the way, it was a mouse. An itsy-bitsy mouse ate the crank sensor harness and killed the Jeep in its own driveway, just like earlier this year a packrat ate the harness for the #4 fuel injector. Which has also been repaired now.
And I know I shouldn’t complain. If I hadn’t been raising money for tires, the Jeep might have stayed at the repair shop for weeks or months while I raised the money to get it out of hock. And that quad-repairing project came out of the blue – it had absolutely nothing to do with the Jeep – just when I found my one-legged ass shank’s mare. Which gave me wheels of a sort while the Jeep was down. Clearly somebody up there likes me. I shouldn’t complain.
But I just this hour got the word that the Jeep has been repaired, and the cost is within my current means and I’ll probably be able to get it home tomorrow, and that’s absolutely wonderful news, and I’m mad as hell about it.
Because what I wanted to spend money on this year was the Lair, and I still need tires.
Please don’t take any of this as a bleg, because it’s not. I’ll deal with the rest of it down the road. I’m just venting. I love my quiet hermit’s life, I really do, but I swear sometimes it’s as frustrating as being Mr. Suburban Man ever was.
Frickin’ mice.
Too bad you can’t turn your chickens loose. Many years ago, mice chewed off the whole wiring harness of the big Dodge van. Thank goodness there were no computer chips or other such things in those days. Anyway, a month later we decided to turn the chickens loose during the day for other reasons… and we discovered we didn’t have any more mouse damage in the garage OR much even in the barn. Chickens will kill and eat mice, wherever they can get at them. Guinea hens and bronze turkeys will also kill and eat them, I’m told.
Oh, please note: The garage door was never completely closed..
Chicken shit everywhere was a hazard, of course. But in the desert, it dries fast. Sweeping it up was not fun. You win some, and you lose some. 🙂
Yeah, I’ve seen my hens fighting over the torn carcass of an incautious mouse. They’re predators.
Next time I see it, I’ll cheer.
It sounds like you need some rodent repellent under your hood. My first-try small critter repellent is usually moth balls. If they must be contained, I tie them in old socks.
Quiet hermit’s life?????? LOL OK so now it’s time to get really serious about killing rats and mice. They just cost you a shitload of money. No repellent. Off the critters. Whatever poison or other means it takes there needs to be dead mice and rats everywhere. No more Mr. Nice Guy. If this is such a common problem, how about some kind of covers for the wires, taped shut at each end? Can you cover the wires with grease, vaseline, Tanglefoot or some kind of poison? Are there any ideas on the Internet?
Once the book and your calendars are for sale, and you do the eco-tourism thing, you’ll have a steady income to use on The Lair. 2015 is The Year. If the mice and rats are dead.
(So if we wanted to send you a roll of Tyvek, how would Home Depot find you?)
Of all the very strange rodent repellant solutions out there, I’ve had surprisingly good luck with Downy dryer sheets. I’ve no earthly clue what compound they contain that varmints abhor, but they seem to be quite effective. Just tuck a few into odd corners that would attract a mouse, and they never seem to come in. And they smell a lot better (to most humans, that is) than mothballs.