Living with Nature...

The Good and the Not So Good
If you've read some of my other blog posts you'll know that from our little home on our bit of land we wake up to sunrises like this...

Marvel at the beauty of nature on mornings such as below...

Be amazed at the colours in nature when one of these appears ...


And other times just think, "Wow".

All which make us sigh in contentment and is a big part of why we love our little patch of dirt.

There are a lot of people that move to our suburb so they can experience old trees, sunrises, sunsets, rainbows and watch storms, but they forget what also comes with living surrounded by nature.

For example, meet Edward. Arachnophobes, I dare you to click on that picture to see it enlarged.

The irony of what we named this spider only became apparent after I'd read the Twilight saga (yes, yes, start mocking me). And also for the fact that due to the size of the spider we believe it's a female.

She stupidly wandered into the house one evening. Luckily I found her on the wall before my Husband. He has a shoe/spider reflex that would match that of an upset Iraqi with a certain former US President placed in front of him. I managed to trap her and throw her outside. Even though I can't bring myself to kill spiders (or anything for that matter), it's still a little unsettling when you throw the spider out into the dark and you hear a deep "Thud".

Now meet Jim. He's a 2 foot long Blue Tongued Lizard. Harmless. Really. Just don't go poking at him with your digits, should you value them. During Summer he brings himself to my attention when I can hear him at the front door trying to get in.

It's good to have a lizard like Jim living in your backyard. He keeps away the snakes. So yeah, watch out for those too in the warm months.

So now I come to the actual point of this entry. Our latest moment with nature is mice. And naturally there are no photos to show you because the little buggers are so damn fast. Except for the one we found last night lodged in the bread crumb tray of the toaster. Glad I didn't feel like crumpets. It would have been interesting to see how long it took either of us to correctly identify exactly what that burning smell was. "Chicken with its feathers still on?", "No, no, it's a more meaty smell".

In an effort to drive them away just by removing opportunity, our pantry is now empty of anything that they could possibly find appealing. Ok, now that we've removed the chicken stock cubes there's nothing else they could find appealing. Then there's the things that you just forget about.
Such as that personalised Easter Egg that you never got around to eating. Mice took care of that for me.

And last night, as I'm cooking away at the stove, my Husband and two dogs are diving around the house in pursuit of two mice who had decided to risk showing themselves in public. A Kelpie, Ridgeback x Bullmastiff and a man who refuses to be outwitted by a mouse make a formidable and determined team.

I have friends who say they couldn't live in a house knowing there were mice, but if you decide you want old trees, uninterrupted views of sunrise and be surrounded by nature, you need to take the good with the not so good. I'm still yet to coax my friend down from the ceiling after telling her about the mouse that kamikazed out of the pantry onto me before scampering away.

We haven't had this many mice before, but previously when we've had a few around, nature usually just balances itself back out and they disappear. What's the hold up nature?!! Ahem, sorry about that.

So why did I decide to write this pretty meaningless entry? As I was typing this up I had a mouse run out from under my desk and another jump out from the empty box I'd had my lunch in. It seemed appropriate. Hey, at least it's not rats.