Cutting/ Chopping Grounds..........

first comment: so what if there are mice in your woodshed?
second comment: mice smell like bacon when cooking in a woodstove.

i havent seen any mice around my shed, just squirrels and birds. My shed is far enough from my house where im not concerned about any kind of rodent getting inside the house.

I used to have a large 2 car detatched garage at my old house that had some field mice during the winter. they ripped out some insulation and made a nest inside one of the window boxes i had taken down for the winter. as soon as i moved the window box there must of been 7-10 mice running around the garage! I picked up some traps and put a little peanut butter on them and had about 15 kills within 2 weeks. I couldnt believe how many were in there....i never would of noticed if i hadnt discovered the nest.

That's the thing, mice can be real subtle and you'd never know they were there save for their droppings, or a cat with good hearing...............

Mice carry diseases and transmit them through their feces. I wear gloves for most of the wood handling and wash my hands after handling the firewood. While there are very few cases of Hantavirus reported in Canada, why take chances?

http://www.google.com/search?q=deer mice feces disease

First pic was in the fall obviously and second was recent. About 2 cords left of 1 yr old wood and 3 (2 not shown) ageing well.

I Have never seen a mouse in my wood shed, although, they must be there because I have found at least 5 whole snake skins this year. I hate mice, I would rather have a snake than a mouse!

The snakes like to use the woodpiles to help them molt. I seldom see mouse nests in the Summer piles where I see the snake skins. I find mouse nests in my Winter piles but no snake skins.

I haven't seen a mouse nest in the last two years and I hope I don't! :coolgrin:

Do they taste like bacon as well?

I'm on about an acre in a semi- suburban area. This neighborhood is wooded- lots of older trees, too. Many folks here keep their front lawn cut and let the back yard go natural. That's what I've done. So I don't think I'm getting noticed too much with my brush piles, wood piles, and stacks. I'm not all that visible from the road, anyway. I'd prefer that my stacks not be visible from the front. I process rounds in my side and/or back yard. So long as I keep the front lawn mowed and look reasonably 'suburban', I don't expect there'll be much unwanted attention. A closer inspection of my carport might remind of Sanford and Son, however. ;-)

Thank goodness there is no tyrannical neighborhood association here, but I doubt I'd push it with any front yard wood processing. If I had a log load delivered, I'd make every effort to convert it to rounds and move it back 'hasto pronto'. But I sneak it in, a half cord at a time, in my van. Heh!

We process logs that are usually harvested a few years earlier and staged up out of the way

Not to many things hang around the wood pile while you're adding to it. But when it goes static for awhile it can attack varmints but not enough to be a nuisance. Over the years we've seen possums, weasels, fishers and minks...but I've never encountered any kind of nest.