Our move to the country has been celebrated by a whole bunch of critters, indoors and out.

When we moved in, back in February, the house was full of ladybugs. It was a little annoying, although I chilled out after I Googled “ladybug infestation” and found out just how bad it could be. They disappeared on their own as spring arrived.

Next came the carpenter bees. These huge, loud bees showed up in the spring, hanging around outside under the eaves, sounding like B52s. We had the place sprayed for them - after all, we live in a log cabin.

Next came the deer, to eat my garden. They ate the tops of my tomato plants, ate my green bean plants almost to the ground, and sheared the leaves off of my strawberry patch.

Once I covered up the garden with deer netting, a woodchuck or something showed up and chewed up my broccoli plants. Whatever it is just went right under the netting and demolished six whole plants.

Now we have the inside-the-house pests: carpenter ants and mice. Again, we can’t allow carpenter anything to settle in our house, so I called the exterminator. We had our first service today, and he sprayed for the ants and left four mousetraps baited with peanut butter in the cabinet under my kitchen sink (where I had found the mouse droppings). This evening we’ve caught three mice so far. Ziggy, our cat, seems strangely unconcerned. He’s letting Marty handle everything.

Welcome to the country.

EDIT: Make that FOUR.