Of Mice and Cars

It was the sweet smell of the sarcococca that saved me today.  In fact, the whole wet and rainy garden breathed some new life into my tired, emotionally worn-out person.  We've been in a seriously drawn out stretch of bad luck.  I'm actually wondering which god I pissed off and what sacrifice I need to consider to end this bleak time.  Our bad luck started in November with the storm, and has continued unabated in various forms.  We can't seem to catch a break.

This morning our van wouldn't start.  True, it has a 100,000 miles on it and has definitely seen better days, but it was fine when we parked it last night.  The battery is new, the tank was full...couldn't figure out what was going on.  We decided to deal with the van later.  Hopped over to the Jeep--again, has a lot of miles, but has been working just fine.  It started.  But then the check engine light came on with a vengeance and the jeep didn't sound so good.  We looked up the meaning of the flashing "check engine light", and it said something along the lines of "you have a huge problem with your car, don't even think about driving it."  How on earth could both cars die during the night, on the same night?  What exactly happened in the garage?  I will tell you.  Mice.  And some very smart mice by the looks of it.  We didn't even know we had mice in the garage.  And maybe we didn't until recently, but these mice went to work last night.  They chewed through important wires and sent both cars to the shop for repairs.  Several hundred dollars in repairs.

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I love animals.  I don't like to kill anything.  Ever.  But tonight I drove to Ace with a mission.  I perused the aisle of death at Ace and weighed my killing options--death by sticky tape, electrocution or the vicious looking Jawz trap?  I went for the traps.  And I just finished lacing our garage with them.  It was satisfying.

We at least have the Jeep back, but the van is spending the night with the mechanic.  Apparently it has been a big year for mouse damage in cars.  The mechanics we spoke to said they haven't seen anything like it.  My neighbor, who also had a mouse nest in her engine (and several hundred dollars of repairs because of their chewing) accused her mechanic of releasing mice into neighborhoods to generate some business.  She was joking.  I think.

Tomorrow, after possibly dealing with the disposal of dead mice, I will head back out to the garden which is sweetly scented and filled with the calls of our winter birds.  In fact, this post was originally going to be about sarcococca ruscifolia--one of my favorite winter plants.  But the mouse and car problem just took over today.  I'd like to say that this plant is a must in the garden.  It is draught tolerant, shade tolerant, very easy going and a nice evergreen shrub.  And in the winter it blooms tiny white flowers that are so fragrant they fill the January garden with the most intoxicating fragrance.

The garden always seems to hold everything for me.  My house might be falling apart, or flooded as was the case in November.  I might be feeling sad, worried, anxious, or angry and the garden is just there.  Ready to hold what is.  And because this last round of heavy, wet snow brought down some big branches, I'll be able to work through my mouse anger in the form of sawing and hauling heavy branches.  Nothing like hard work to release tension!  Oh, and catching those insanely clever mice would make me happy too.