It was nice enough Sunday to get out in the yard and do a little cleanup. We have an ornamental trash-catcher bush in the front yard – I think it’s some kind of hawthorn, and I think it’s some kind of ugly nasty encroacher that’s going to see its last spring. Not only is it overgrown and ugly 11 1/2 months of the year, it shelters a merry little band of voles that have been feasting on the grass for a couple of years – I figured out what they were at the end of the summer, but then it was too late to get a little man in to deal with them. And I thought maybe they’d move on or get killed off over the winter. No such luck.

Well, it’s time for the GALMI system after all, I’m thinking.

I’ll be calling the dreaded Terminix (or whoever it is we use) and asking them if they can deal with the vole problem. From what I recall, it’s not a “homeowner fixable” task – the stuff they use (yuck) is dangerous.

If there were a way to trap the little buggers and ship them over to the nice wetland preserve across the street, I’d do it, but I bet they don’t have a humane trap option for this type of pest.

I realized I’d have to do something drastic about the voles because I had to rake a lot of junk out from under the trash-catcher, along with a pile of brush from last year that got tucked back underneath it the last time I tried to cut it back. The voles have killed the lawn all around the edge (and I don’t think it’s winterkill. My plan for that area was always to dig out the bush and some nasty flat junipers (the kind that always smell of cat-pee) and put in an irregular raised bed with maybe a Japanese maple (or some other lacy ornamental tree that’s not a traffic hazard on a corner lot).

The back yard shows some damage to the lawn, too – big dry cracks in the grass, yet the ground is saturated (gotta love the horrible clay “soil” we have here). I’m worried that there’s voles out back, too.

Joy.