Moving to Woodland in 2017. Personal Story. Part 4

Unregistered Household Inhabitants.

The Dog that tried his best
helping to deal with mice.

For those who are tired from the endless run in the city, moving to countryside might sound like the most romantic idea in the world – peace and silence, no crowds, just nature – and that’s how it is. It’s beautiful. But living with nature in natural environment means a bit more than just enjoying the beauty of nature and planting the garden. It also means that nature will come in your life in different forms not always in a pleasant way. 

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)
Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

Life happens outdoors and indoors with or without you willing it to happen. And endless love for nature won’t save you.  Not the most pleasant part of countryside life, especially if you are in an old house that requires looots of renovations that will last for years. That’s our case and we are dealing with it. So, this time about sharing living space with unpleasant household inhabitants. Identifying the first two „enemies” who love living with people was easy:  mice & fleas. So, first things first:

How to get rid of mice living in countryside?

Oh  boy, this was an adventure, and the short answer is you can’t get rid of them entirely. They will always be somewhere around, and that’s definitely not the worst thing that might happen. In natural environment they are food for big birds like eagles and owls, for bigger reptiles, and mammals like cats, foxes and others. Outdoors they will eat from your garden, roots and vegetables make great snacks for them, but that’s not the biggest issue. The biggest issue for us was getting them out of our home indoors. First months of living here I heard them dancing everywhere, especially at night and I have no doubt they were running over me while I  was asleep. I don’t want even imagine that. 

Our old dog was annoyed by the mice as much as we were. He was trying to catch mice, but his size and lack of agility didn't allow him to be a good helper with this. So, we had to go to the war. Against mice.

Block their ways

Firstly, you have to block their entrances into the house. In an old  building there might be more of mice  ways and tunnels than you could expect. Every crack in a wall or floor is their opportunity to get into warmth and to your food kept indoors. If the house is renovated before you move in, great! If not, seek for strong materials to fill those cracks and holes with until you can get to proper renovations. But, if you keep doors and/or windows open in summer (as we do) they will get in unnoticed.

Don’t leave food available for snacking

The second thing, do your best to store your food in containers that mice can’t get through. Leaving cookies overnight on a kitchen (or any other) table is a huge NO – they will feast on them. We also lived through a period where we were washing dishes not just after meals but also before – because the mice shit all around showed that they might love playing on our dishes as well.

The mythical powers of aluminum foil

I was digging internet for natural methods of getting rid of them – those little, cute looking fellas were really disturbing. One of those short-term methods I found online as great helpers where covering surfaces with aluminum foil. Of course, I  had to try, especially because internet told me it works. And it did help. For 2 days. Then the mice learnt that aluminum foil doesn’t do anything bad to them and returned to their old trails without caring for shine and noise aluminum foil makes. They didn’t eat their ways to food covered  with foil in our home, but I’ve heard it’s not a big deal for mice in other households – they just eat their way through aluminum foil. So, it’s a solution for a day.

Peppermint & Cloves

This comes from the depths of internet as well:  peppermint and clove aroma is way too strong for mice and they don’t go where these aromas rule. So, I brewed a strong infusion of peppermint herb and cloves to wash floors with. I generously added peppermint & clove essential oils to the water. The aroma was so strong it was too strong even for myself. It had to work.

That  was the night the mice moved from the floor to walls. And ate a few plants I had started indoors to plant outside later.

I heard them running on walls and from times to times falling down and that was worse than hearing them moving around on the floor.

I also scattered cloves around the places I’ve observed as their highways. Did that help? I don’t know. I was mixing different methods  on early spring because the presence of mice inside the house was pretty disturbing.

Heroes of this War

We won the war with mice through friendship with cats. We befriended an outdoor cat that already lived outside around our house. We really wanted to get him to live indoors with us, but he is such a wild creature that he panics every time he is indoor and the door is closed. Whole summer we were trying to the get that cat indoors. He entered only when he was sure the door won’t close, and those rare days when he came indoors, he was extremely fast bringing out of the house freshly caught mice. That helped. A little bit. This cat didn’t necessarily need our indoor mice as he had a wide world for hunting outdoors.

In  October we spotted another cat visiting our household and she moved indoors to live with us. Our new cat turned out to be the greates huntress ever. For the first few days she was catching mice and bringing them to us to show what she has caught for us. And, to be honest, we were tired enough from the war with mice, that we celebrated every victory our cat brought us. Since we live with one cat outdoors and one indoors, we haven’t heard from mice anymore.  We won the war with mice through friendship with cats. I don’t know any better method. The cat turned out to be the greatest weapon.

And as the cat doesn't care for cookies and mice are scared to from the cat we actually can leave a dish of cookies on a table and it will stay untouched :D 

Our heroic huntress

The mice lived around here in countryside and they will always live here, but I want to keep them outdoors. So, I sometimes leave veggies in the fields not too close to the house where they can easily find and feast on them.

Encounters with some especially unpleasant hitchhikers from insect realm are on the way in the next post of this „Moving to Woodland in 2017” series.

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)
Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts.

Moving to Woodlands in 2017. Personal story. Part 2.

Me & my husband were longing for countryside life, so, here we are now –  after 10 years in city moved to woodlands in 2017, and not leaving it. We are staying here. This is our honest „moving to countryside” story & my thoughts from the house, garden and woodlands.

 Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)

Worries for the Two Months Alone.

I heard I’m crazy when I moved to the countryside alone at the end of February. We are talking about February in Northern Europe. The weather here isn’t very gentle at that time of the year. 

February 2017

Besides that people around me were worried about many other things (and those worries proved to be useless):

1) My relationships. Will everything be still fine with us if my husband stayed in the city for 2 more months?

I have confidence in my relationships. Moving to countryside was what we both wanted. There was nothing to fear about.  

I mean, all those relationship dramas and not being able to trust and so on... Sorry, we are not interested in that.  2 months of living mostly separately definitely can help for both sides to grow stronger together & appreciate each others presence a lot more. And it’s not that we didn’t meet those 2 moths at all. Not every week, of course, but c'mon , it's 21st century. Phone & chat exists. 

2) How will I get on with shopping & daily chores alone right from the beginning?

I don’t  drive a car and closest shops are  15km away, but there is public bus. 2km walk to the bus stop isn’t that difficult. 

There is more: visiting shop once a week by bus and knowing that you will have to carry the bags 2km on the way home helps correcting shopping habits very fast. You bring home what you really need, and that’s a blessing! Oh, strangely enough, there are people in 21st century that still think a woman can’t deal with these things alone. She can. And it is as easy as bringing wood indoors and putting it on fire every single day. When you know exactly why you are  doing something, it’s not that hard to do.

3) Won’t I feel lonely?

I was a bit worried about this myself, although I’ve never been running to crowds, friends & parties, but it had been a strong part of our city lives. I’m pretty much a loner who doesn’t seek social  contacts, but what made me worried was that I had been tortured by some episodes of depression for the past years of city life, so, yes, I wasn’t sure if I won’t step into depression being out there alone, with nobody to lift up my spirits when I’m down. And, no, I experienced no sign of depression or loneliness. I was finally with myself alone, and that’s another blessing I recognized from the beginning. Although... I realized that being in nature & with the dog every day takes away all of the feelings of loneliness. I was with nature. I wasn't alone. 

So here I was. After 10 years of city life, I just had turned 29 & moved into my husbands childhood house for the first 2 moths alone. In February, with wood fired furnace & stove, no running water & washing machine, toilet only outdoors, poor heat insulation indoors, and many other extras. The development of comfort levels in this house had stopped quite some time ago. I have to mention, it wasn’t exactly my first time experience with this kind of countryside life. I lived it exactly like that in my childhood. The difference now was that I had got used to the physical comfort levels of city life and household comfort developments that hasn’t reached this house yet.

So,   those 2 months of being alone in the old house in woodlands, I actually understood about myself a lot more than in the past few years. I proved myself that I can. I started growing seedlings indoors, planning the garden, planting a small greenhouse, I was cleaning, organizing, learning the history of people who have lived here before me & like for the first time in my life discovering the magic of cooking. The wood fired stove  - I never even imagined this was the thing to loop me into cooking (I have been far from a kitchen witch before)! And also I started dwelling in forests a lot more than ever before. The forest here is closer than a bus stop. I don’t go for walks in shops, I go into woods.

The spring this year turned out to be exceptionally cold, but it didn’t disturb me. I was amazed by seeing every single day how the seasons are changing, how birds are returning, how the first greens are sprouting out of the ground... There is some kind of hippie vibe around here, but honestly, this was the happiest spring in my life so far.  I was finally here, starting to live the life I was longing for. Working creatively, developing new ideas, discovering the world around me. My daily routines were changing naturally, together with my weight. Weight-loss wasn’t even in my mind as a part of „the new life”, but it happened, and, oh, I’m not complaining! I also re-discovered my confidence I was lacking for quite some time.

Building the first little greenhouse. April 2017

After the 2 months of me being alone & without attending any social gatherings, on May my husband moved back into his family house & to me – his wife as a person of a whole new level (that’s, of course, my inner feeling, I’m not expecting applause for it). 

May 2017. The beginnings of herb garden.

Now we clearly know that the future is real, ideas become reality and life happens with unplanned & unexpected benefits. (Negative surprises happen as well, but not in this post today, they will come to the surface later).

While such life of being alone every day without much of comfort is a usual thing for many people around here, I’m putting these 2 months in my personal unwritten list of awesome things I’ve done. Mostly because of the fact of dealing with the changes of physical comfort levels alone.

This is more or less how it all started. The beginning. From here we are both together dealing with all of it. Unwanted house inhabitants, leaking roof, first garden & acknowledgments of the work we are up to for the next 20 years are on the way in the next posts of this „Moving to Woodlands 2017” series.

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts.

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)

Moving to Woodlands in 2017. Personal story. Part 1.

Some call it the world awakening, others say those who seek happiness moving to countryside are crazy or simply following trends  and will run back to the comfort of cities soon. Some congratulate those who leave cities and others fear for them. The movement of moving away from big cities is real, it grows in heads of many people like mushrooms after rain. Me & my husband were longing for countryside life, so, here we are now –  after 10 years in city moved to woodlands in 2017, and not leaving it. We are staying here. This is our honest „moving to countryside” story & my thoughts from the house, garden and woodlands.

That's the house

Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around.

I started this blog living in a rented city apartment  in 2014 in the name of missing the things that from times to times appeared into my head as voices from the past, from the life in the countryside where I grew up. About a year later the idea of moving to countryside started to visit me and my husband (we weren’t married yet). We decided to move into my husbands childhood house in the woodlands  - 90+ years old wooden building that hasn’t experienced much of care for the past 15 years. 2 km to the closest bust stop. 15km to the closest town.  We knew what it would mean – a loooot of renovations and different kinds of physical work. So, we decided to approach this idea as adults. We started to plan.  We calculated that we will need about 5 years to get at least some financial savings to help us start the life in the woodlands. So, 5 years it was.
But we both haven't been very precise planning the future. 

The idea  in our heads grew stronger. We visited the house a lot more often, started  to clean, plant flowers, make minor improvements. We spent vacations in the old house with hopes that it will really happen and we will move in soon. Well, there was some kind of doubts, as we both had proven to ourselves that we are terrible at planning... Besides that we had lives in the city, friends, our routines, favorite bar. I was a ghostwriter , he had a good job, band and improvisation theater, concerts & improv-shows, I started to grow different plants on all 3 windowsills of our 2-room city apartment, including tomatoes. And all of that wasn’t making us happy. We wanted to get married, we wanted to travel, we wanted to move sooner, we were running after money every day, in a wheel where that money was never ours anyways.  We were breaking down  & burning out. 5 years felt way too much before we get to the woodlands.

In 2016 with an idea of moving to coutryside (and knowing that job market there is almost non-existent ), I started to look for some additional hobby-based income, so, I opened an Etsy shop. I’m a crafter by heart, I have always been crafting a bit too much for myself, now I decided to try putting it out in the world. As I’m the marketing dummy, the money didn’t exactly run to my bank account to become a part of the savings for „the new life”, but the time of city life started to run out much faster than expected. We trew out the idea of the 5 year plan & savings, quietly got married in 2016 without guests and parties (it felt right and still does).  We figured out the soonest possible option of getting there & instead of making savings we started to buy tools for renovations, gardening and other countryside needs – things we will need right from the beginning. And at the end of February in 2017 I already moved in. My husband stayed 2 more months in the city to catch a bit of better paying season at work, but I was already here. The future came faster than we thought at first, and here I am now already for  9 months.  With 90 % of my daily life totally different than a year ago around this time.

We didn’t change just a location. We changed our lives.  And we obviously needed emotional breakdown to make our moving to countryside possible sooner. 

My two months of early spring alone in the woodlands are on the way in the next post of this „Moving to Woodlands 2017” series. Part 2 coming soon!

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts