Help!

I intended to do a big post today on music. We have had some awesome musical experiences lately that I wanted to share.

But that will have to wait.

Because I need some help.

My lovely little garden is being eaten by voles.

Voles.

How do I know we have voles?

Because we have holes and that rhymes with both voles and moles. An interesting coincidence. How do I know the tiny holes all over the yard are from voles, not moles? Because our cat has killed two and left the corpses for our examination.

Moles are okay. You don't want them, because tunnels in your yard are never good things for your plants, and they eat worms, and worms are good. But moles do not eat plants.

Voles are evil. Voles are the second worse plague for gardeners after mosquitoes (which perhaps don't affect gardeners, but they affect me). They eat the roots of pretty much any plant, and they love perennials. (I know, I know, they aren't deer, but at least deer are cute.)

Obviously, I've been obsessively researching voles ever since the corpses were discovered, but information on getting rid of voles is sketchy at best. The most attractive option right now is to get another cat, and I don't say that lightly because I don't really like cats. At all.

If anyone out there in cyber space has any get-rid-of-voles suggestions, I will put up a thank-you shrine to this person in my yard. You will be memorialized for generations to come (unless you don't want to be).

Now because this is supposed to be a blog about books, not voles, I am going to share a book suggestion that has nothing to do with pests. I shared it just the other day, but I shared it in a grouping of other books, and I've decided this series deserves a post all its own (okay, shared with voles), because Shaemus and I were reading it out loud yesterday and he was laughing and exclaiming and his eyes were wide and he begged and begged me to read the next chapter and the next and the next. Then he sneakily stayed up reading after I told him to go to bed.


Star Jumper: Journal of a Cardboard Genius by Frank Asch

Just even thinking about how great this was last night almost erases the stress about the voles. 

Almost. But not quite.