Oh, Stormy! Definitive answer to the vole problem.

Heh heh

Stumbled across this in the archives of the Virginia Folklife Society. Please note the fate of the poor old guy from Cockneyville, Maryland. LOL


In a conversation with an aged mountaineer the subject somehow turned to the destructive nature of rats and the great loss that can be attributed to those rodents. He said, "Nowadays they have chemicals and traps that can help eliminate them, but in earlier times, around our neighborhood, we used special words we called 'giving away the rats'."1


He explained that the procedure required finding a blacksnake which was then killed but kept intact. The snake was then buried near the rat infested house with its head pointed in the direction where the rats should go--a specific residence had to be selected, not a stand of woods, mountain or other uninhabited place. The informant noted, "We done it here, and after awhile people on the farm down the road complained they was being overrun!"


In the same neighborhood, which borders Highland and Rockingham Counties in Virginia and Pendleton County in West Virginia, other elderly residents told of similar practices with minor variants. Some claimed the snake must be buried after sunset or before sunrise, others said special words as part of the process, and still others carried the blacksnake around the homestead three times before burial in its special position.2


As unusual as this practice may appear, it reminded me of an experience recounted by Cornelius Weygandt, Professor of Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, who bought a farm in New England a half century ago and in preparing the place for his summer occupancy found an old letter addressed to rats which asked them to leave the basement of the home.3 Weygandt considered
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it unique; nevertheless it was a practice known in widely separated places in America and in Virginia too.


One such letter was dated October 31, 1888 in Maine, and addressed to "Mssrs. Rats and Co." The opening paragraph reads: "Having taken quite a deep interest in your welfare in regard to your winter quarters, I thought I would drop you a few lines..." The writer then offered persuasive reasons why the rats should leave, citing the cold winter months, the lack of food, and the planned remodeling of the interior of the home. He told the rats that they would be uncomfortable and perhaps destitute. The writer then recommended an alternative consisting of a specific address of a neighbor to which they could go, adding that "...you will find a splendid cellar well filled with vegetations...a barn with a good supply of grain, where you can live snug and happy." The letter ends with a mild threat, "Shall do you no harm if you heed my advice."


A similar letter written in New Hampshire in 1845 was much less friendly and more demanding (perhaps this was a second or third letter of a sequence), "I have borne with you till my patience is gone...depart from this place with all speed!...Begone, or you are ruined!" The consequences of staying were emphatic, "We are preparing water to drown you; fire to roast you; cats to catch you; and clubs to maul you." Yet the writer offered the rats an alternative by suggesting they "...quit here and go to Ike Nutes!"


In 1882 an elderly Maryland farmer near Cockneyville wrote such a letter which he read aloud to the rats which infested his home. He read it at night in the belief they were perhaps more active and receptive at that time. His occult activities became widely known when his children used the letter as evidence against him in court seeking a legal declaration of his incompetence.


In recent years two specimens of similar letters were made available to this writer. One used in Rockingham County was written
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on a single sheet and "delivered" to the rodents through a hole in a baseboard of the homestead near rural Tenth Legion. The other was similar in structure and theme and was merely placed in the cellar near food supplies that rats had been eating, on a farm located in western Shenandoah County.


A lifetime resident of the region offered instructions for the procedure, "lf you find rats or mice in your house write them a cordial note saying how bad the facilities are and suggest they leave. Put the note where they will see it. If this doesn't work, write another letter and say it's the second notice and be firm but cool. If this doesn't work, write a third notice but be mean and tell them to "get out!" Warn them you'll use poisons and traps--they'll be gone in just a few days after that!"4


In seeking to reduce the loss of grain caused by rats, John George Hohman's pow-wow booklet (1819) included a method used by many Pennsylvania Germans. This was in a sense a harvest ritual in which the first three sheaves of grain were presented to the rats with an announcement, "Rats these sheaves I give to you, in order that you may not destroy any of my wheat."5. The rest of the harvest was then stored in the barn. This practice assumes the logical and reasonable nature of the rodent.

Hart: How helpful and seasonal, as the mice have invaded my stove as they do periodically. I'll be sure to leave them a courteous cease-and-desist note (along with the less friendly offerings we usually put out).

Hart, You genius, I am mentally composing my vole missive as I type.
Maybe DSO will have me declared incompetent as I read it aloud to those buggers. I think I'll stuff it down their big hole!!!

Hart, Is that snake still hanging around your garden?????? I've got the perfect neighbor in mind.

Happy, you may want to make sure you turn on your oven and let it get good and hot at least once a day. I had mice ruin my old stove nesting in the insulation inside and around the oven. Ended up having to replace that stove because it was cheaper than paying to have all that insulation replaced.

That particular snake moved on to greener pastures, or mousier pastures, after I kind of relocated him around the yard a couple of times with Snake Away. LOL There are other snakes around but as long as they stay out of my water garden and flower beds and leave the baby birds alone, I have a laissez faire policy. The black snakes are supposed to keep the timber rattlers away. Thank heavens I've never seen a timber rattler here.

How funny that the method outlined by the farmer at the top involved killing black snake. They actually help keep down the mice too.

I'm so glad this was helpful. LOL Do you have to write in eensy weensy little letters on eensy weensy pieces of paper?

Hart, Holly and I really enjoyed your research. I have a few extra black snakes around but it may be a little late in the season to find them, I may even have a special neighbor in mind. lol.
In regards to a letter, I'm fairly sure or rodent population is illiterate as they have chewed their way into the poison in the past. Ric

This is GOOD, Hart!! We have had little brown mice with white chest and belly blazes come into the basement last year during the winter and put peanut butter traps ot and caught a few. Too soon to say we won, though. I sort of expect we will get more. DH was careless and left a plastic bag of grass seed out in the garage and, of course, they took their welcome for granted.

Hart: The mice are actually in the drawer under the stove top -- I think they are coming in through the vent, which is one of those that sucks the exhaust in through the the stove top, so the vent is actually under the stove. (The oven is separate, and thankfully no mice there. Ick at the notion of cooking the mice.)

Heating the oven just convinces them it's not a great place to live. I don't think I ever actually cooked any mice. LOL

Ric, you're such a cynic. LOL You never know what will work with these pesky critters. I can certainly understand being willing to try just about anything. The field mice that get into the house here are so darned smart. I can't put out just single traps, I have to set them up in a row of four or five with the food end up against the wall. Otherwise they just eat the bait and get away unscathed.

I also have a contraption called a Ratzapper that works really well for the ones that are too smart even for the five in a row traps.

Well I KNOW it is not the voles/moles but Something is munching on one hosta - leaf by leaf.
Could this possibly be rabbits? They usually are sufficiently pleased eating the Liropi, variegated -ThankYou

. . .just when the voles/moles were straightened out. . . .
any idea who is coming to dinner (that is munching on this one hosta)?

It's not slugs is it they leave large holes on hosta. I have slug issues.

50glee, something other than slugs has been munching my hosta too. There are rabbits and groundhogs living here and at my neighbors, so I'm sure it's one of them.

Are yours being eaten like this?

That looks like the work of a hungry bunny. I have one that is doing a job on my daylillies and I never thought they would touch them. Wascally wabbits!

Wascals indeed! Last year Gita lost a bunch of daylilies to the bunnies. This year they ate most of my Bergenia. Guess they looked like giant cabbages!!!

Funny how they'll chomp one plant to death and leave others along... I think I found a balloon flower nibbled down to stubs yesterday, in a bed where several others look unmolested. They like liriope, but definitely prefer the variegated kind (or they just haven't found the others).

They seem to be bothering my Hostas much more this year than normal. They are going to look funny as they get taller with all of the bottom leaves gone. They chomped a couple of hugh Oriental lilies off at the base.

I have the definitive vole solution-- it would probably work for rabbitts, too. And squirrels.

His name is Mabon and I found him and his littermates on the side of the road last fall. His two surviving sisters found other homes, but he gets stuck with me. He's brought me three dead voles so far this spring plus one live baby squirrel that I saved and took to a wildlife rehabilitator.

Here he is with his latest 'gift'

Wonderful! We've got an orange kitty, too, but he is strictly an inside cat. We've tried to take him out back on a harness, but he just shakes, poor thing -- I think the memory of his night under a bush (before being found by our cousin & brought to us) is too fresh in his little kitty brain. But he does love to sit by the patio door and "sniff the breezes" and keep an eye on the birds and the squirrel! And he's a great stalker of stink bugs etc. in the house.

(wondering about his name... Mabon... are you a Charles de Lint fan?)

We do treat the lawn once in a while with Grubx, made by Beyer. We have also used bacillus to reduce the grubs usually after the 7 year locust. This seems to help with the mole/vole problem. The thing that seems to help the most are those electronic Mole Chasers, They are like metal tubes you put into the area you want to chase the critters from. They emit an electronic buzz that the pest find irritating enough to avoid, I really think they work. I've seen ads for a device that is supposed to do the same for mice, and have thought about installing one in the crawl space before we get the usual fall tide of winter-overers. Gotta' run the Grand babies are here. Ric

Ric, they didn't work at all for me. There are two types of voles in the midatlantic region. Maybe they only work on the one type.

I also posted this under the pest thread:
Found this very fresh black snake skin by our hose bib when we got home today. It measures 5'1", a fella this big can eat his weight in rodents and voles in one season. They are relatively safe to have around as long as you don't surprise them. Ric

critter, I am a de Lint fan! I'm a big sci-fi/fantasy geek. :)

Mabon brought me another dead vole this weekend and I even saw a big black snake slither under the shed the other day, but unfortunately I'm starting to see tons of mole hills in the veggie garden again, especially around the summer squash plants. They must be extra tasty. I lost all but one squash to the moles/voles last year.

Oh, us too! You should see the "book room" upstairs. The builder called it a "rumpus room" but the nieces & nephews call it "the book room," and that's where they sleep when they visit. It's also got a good assortment of toys and a bookshelf just for kid books. :-)

I don't think I'm seeing as many vole holes this year (maybe no new construction in the area to drive extras into our yard?), but gosh the bunnies are multiplying (like.. well, like rabbits!). LOL

This isn't the big one, from the snake skin just a puny 3 footer. He is laying on that big evergreen growing in my raised brick patio. Only hours after seeing this one I spotted a 2ft garter crawling under the same patio. Honesty I think the Chippies are so cute but we have soooooo many that I would be very happy to have these snakes eat a few of them.

Kubileya, Do you plant Castor Beans in that bed? It's supposed to repel them. I don't know if Milky Spore would be effective in a veggie bed, because the tilling might kill the fungus. They have to have a winter food source, which is probably grubs.

I have a rescued cat, Bella, that is afraid to go outside as well. She runs away afraid when I open the door. A friend found her, and her deceased mother and liter mate in his car. She had mild frostbite on the tip of her tail, which healed. That was enough outdoors for her. She likes her creature comforts too much to risk losing them. I am glad that she doesn't want to go outside, I prefer an indoor cat. There are too many near feral "pet" cats and other dangers here.

A grey field mouse found its way inside this winter, probably when we replaced the stove. Several days afterward both Tiffany and Bella began "playing" together downstairs. What a commotion. I didn't see any signs of rodents, but figured there must be one around. One morning, I almost stepped on a dead mouse. They games promptly ended. Thank goodness. For those without pets, heat or smoke should deter the mice. Animals have a universal fear of fire.

GardenQuilts raises an interesting point. I have some of those old Smudge pots that they use in Fla and Cal to heat the orange groves. I wonder if a couple of those burning around the veggie bed for a day or 2 would send them packing.

It probably would. However, if they didn't find a better veggie buffet in their travels, they may come back when the smoke clears.

Maybe if you wrote them a note and pointed them toward some gardens down the road...

;-)

LOL, Well I will say that something is working here I don't have tunnels in the grass and even the mice population seems to be down. Snakes, thumpers or grubx whatever it is has worked so far. Now if we could reduce the Chippie population just a bit.

Have you tried Plantskydd granular for chipmunks? It is supposed to be organic. My chipmunk population is expanding exponentially -- I've got to do something.

Happy, Is Plantskyyd Thiriam based? I've read about it several times, especially on the lily forum. I've never ordered it because it's pretty expensive. But I suppose I could get some just for that hill area.