Anybody's got a cat for rent?

Something ate the zuke, a photo by Rubber Slippers In Italy on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
When gardening is a hobby you have to take the good with the bad. Well this is not just bad, this is baaaad, and I'm going to get the sucka that did this.

I feel a small obnoxious headache coming on and it could be for the fact that I drank too much sangria after spending a short while in the garden. That sentence sounds all wrong (shouldn't it be drinking sangria in the hot sun while out tending to the tomatoes?). Well, I only have two hands. One to hold this dead zucchine plant and the other to hold the weeder that was ready to stab whatever it was that bit off the entire root system. I usually keep all things garden on my garden blog but I am desperate here folks. The culprit(s) are field mice - I am certain of it. And they are nocturnal. There are entry/exit holes throughout the zuke patch, about 2 inches in diameter, and these holes are part of a network of tunnels that take Mr. Topo Countrymouse from point A to point B. It seems that if anything is blocking the tunnel blueprint, these guys are just gnawing right through instead of circumventing the obstruction.

I asked MotH to go to the nursery dude to see what they have for an environmentally-safe solution, but I fear poison is the only answer. Mousetraps (the snap'em dead ones) are not available here and from day one the mice have never taken the cheese bait left in the cage traps, only the ants are licking their lips. Don't even suggest sticky traps, because I've had to deal with enough of those disgusting things before. Owning a cat is out of the question... Maddie would want to be best friends with it while Mr B would plot for its immediate demise.