{"id":387,"date":"2014-02-01T16:18:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T00:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=387"},"modified":"2014-02-01T16:18:04","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T00:18:04","slug":"mousebags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=387","title":{"rendered":"Mousebags"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the third time since we moved to the Mendocino Coast, we\u2019ve had an expensive car repair caused in part by mice chewing on the electrical cables. Time for another garage clean-up, and time to get serious about deterring the little darlings. We hied ourselves down to Mendocino Hardware<\/a> to check out our options. Mousetraps? No. The field mice have a right to live, just not inside the building. Tony spied a gizmo that emits an ultrasonic squeal, which they\u2019re supposed to not like. I was dubious; ultrasonic stakes installed in the vegetable garden a while back had no effect whatsoever on the gophers and voles. I picked up a can of something called Nature\u2019s Defense. Organic, the label said. I scanned the ingredient list. Garlic, cinnamon, clove, white pepper, rosemary, thyme, peppermint. Hmmm! Interesting combination of smells. We decided it was worth a try.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On opening the can, we discovered that the smelly material was in granules that tended to clump together. The next challenge was how to contain it under the hood. I remembered that when I was a child, a favorite gift to sew for my grandma was a lavender bag. While the clipped lavender dried in the shed, I would rummage through my mother\u2019s box of fabric scraps, drawing pieces of voile and dimity through my fingers, feeling their softness, hearing their colors sing to each other. I would stitch my neatest stitches to make a tiny bag, decorated with fragments of lace and a ribbon to draw in the top.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mousebag installed under the hood.<\/p><\/div>\n

I figured the mice wouldn\u2019t appreciate dimity and lace. But there was an old undershirt of Tony\u2019s in the rag bag. I pulled out my sewing basket, threaded a needle, and set to work. Memories came flooding back as I sewed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Filled and tied with string, the little bags are now fastened with duct tape around the engine. The car smells a bit garlicky, especially when we switch on the fan, so we\u2019re trying to remember not to. It\u2019s too early to tell how effective the repellant will be. I\u2019ll let you know in a few months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the third time since we moved to the Mendocino Coast, we\u2019ve had an expensive car repair caused in part by mice chewing on the electrical cables. Time for another garage clean-up, and time to get serious about deterring the little darlings. We hied ourselves down to Mendocino Hardware to check out our options. Mousetraps? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,24],"tags":[178,35,175,177,174,176],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}