I finally got around to moving a big brush pile from the willow cuttings a few weeks ago. I was motivated after chatting with my neighbor about Japanese beetles that decimated his grapes a few years ago, because the beetles could nest where the grass was weak and not fertilized. I didn’t want my side of the yard to become a problem.

The wood and leaves retained the water from the latest rain and were wet, slimy, and starting to mold.

On the first shake of the pile, thousands of mosquitoes took flight. Uh… yuck.

On the second shake, another mosquito exodus took place. Some moths made their way up as well; two keen birds collected them.

I stood the cut branches upright in another section of yard so the leaves would naturally fall and be easier to collect.

As I came to the last few large branches of the weeks-old pile, I saw stirrings beneath the multicolored leaves upon the ground.

I went for a closer look and saw a plump mouse stick its head out, and scurry away.

As I stared in surprise, I saw more movement in my peripheral vision. In the next ten minutes, I spotted three more mice. They had tunneled under the leaves while all the brush was sitting there.

Dusk fell but I was not deterred. I raked as much leaf debris into piles as possible so the grass could dry out during the next day.

Mice love leaf debris by mehron is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International