This evening, as we often do, we decided to try to fit in a gardening task after supper. That is to say, Janelle took the lead on caring for the girls and I headed out to layer a compost heap.
In our casual system, compost materials (mostly kitchen refuse and weeds) are deposited in one bay of our three-bay compost bin system, and when enough material has accumulated and the space next to it is vacant, I layer the raw, mostly half-decomposed material with soil (if not enough has come along with the weeds), high-carbon "brown" materials (not too much), and lime or wood ashes (sparingly). When I can no longer add any material without causing a minor avalanche each time, the heap is ready to transform, over the course of weeks or months, into the best soil amendment I know of. It gets turned one time into the bottom bay as soon as it becomes vacant and I can get around to it.
As it happens, this evening it began to gently rain as I began the layering job. The temperature was nice, though, so I just went after a hat and kept on. I was enjoying the lush vegetation, the bird calls, the slanted evening light that was only dimly penetrating the clouds overhead.
But what was that squeaking sound?
Every so often I could hear a faint but distinct squeaking as I tilted, then plunged the fork to fill it afresh. I ruled out bird calls, because I could tell it was a very local sound. Was it my knee brace? No, it happened once while I was still. I assumed then that it must be what I'd found the last time I turned a pile--a nest of mouse pups. I hoped it was the same nest, because then the mice would be old enough to scatter on their own rather than obliging tender-hearted me to relocate them as I had the last time when I moved them several inches over into the next bin, since they seemed to be old enough to move around some and loud enough to call in the mom when she came looking.
No such luck. When I uncovered the nest, they were very new, pink, puny, with eyes still closed, and utterly helpless to even change their position. Moreover, they were right in the middle of the topmost bay, nowhere near any refuge, and I had at least a half hour more to work in the area...I felt sure the mother wouldn't feel safe coming to search for them until they had succumbed to hypothermia, especially in the rain.
I made my decision quickly, but with a sinking heart. I gathered all the "pinkies" I could find (I think there were seven) into my gloved hand and made my way to one of the movable chicken pens. The hens had not yet gone to roost, so, steeling myself, I reached out and dropped one hairless mouse pup onto the cool, wet grass. A curious hen came to investigate, and in a few seconds the mouse pup was gone. One by one I dropped them in, and one by one they were swiftly dispatched by powerful beaks then swallowed whole, with gusto. I walked back to my task, my hands feeling empty.
In those kinds of moments, I always wonder what animal rights-motivated vegetarians and vegans would do in my shoes. Certainly the destruction of the mouse nest had nothing to do with the production of meat, although my choice of what to do with the doomed nestlings may contribute to our egg supply. Nearly every organic gardener needs compost...I often wonder how many mice are destroyed by the turning of those massive windrows of compost turned by machine at the professional operations. The operators could in no way afford to take any pains for mercy.
Of course, in the natural food chain creatures are gaining their sustenance by way of the destruction of other creatures every millisecond of every day. Still it feels strange to be an intermediary in that relationship. I say it feels strange and so you might assume this is a rare occurrence, but the fact is we do this habitually. Throughout the growing season one might find me collecting beetle grubs to toss to the chicken we keep in a movable pen in the garden partly for that purpose. Japanese beetles and slugs I feed to the birds with positive relish, and here in 2012 we're in the thick of the 17 year cicada emergence, so several times per day someone may make the rounds to collect cicadas from the lower branches of trees (they seem to be especially fond of the apples...worrisome!) to throw to the ducks or chickens. Even Janelle has taken a deep breath and handed one to Kali's pet chicken, "Daffodil" (the aforementioned garden chicken).
For that matter, I sometimes feel pangs towards all the vibrant plants we routinely kill because we like the ones we placed in the same location better, rendering the perfectly innocent, sometimes preexisting plant a "weed." In some cases, the same plant in another location would be prized. For example, this evening while turning the compost I took a few seconds to gaze wistfully at one particular clump of sod that rolled out of the heap: it was a perfect, pure clump of orchard grass punctuated by some very cute white clover...an ideal piece of pasture. If I only were to take the time to dig a hole for it, it would be quite viable. I sighed the sigh of a busy man and reached out to stab it onto the fork, then tossed it on the new heap.
Still, something feels different when it's a mammal. Kali wondered today about the definition of a mammal. I replied with a question, "What do you think might be the connection between the word 'mammal' and the word 'mammary'?" Mammals, including mice and us, give milk to their young, and even though I know a blacksnake could have come along five minutes later and eaten the mother for dinner and the babies for dessert, and even though I know this is how the mouse is wired to interface with the world, I do not like knowing that she may search for her nest of pups and never find it.
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