It all began this spring. I was cleaning out our pantry, organizing some of the dry foods, when I noticed mouse droppings. I tried to ignore them. We'd occasionally gotten a mouse in our house over the years that either went away (at least that's what our cats told us) or we caught and released.Then I saw the bags of rice. Gone. We're not just talking nibbles here. There were entire bags of rice completely empty except for mouse droppings in the bag! I picture that little bugger chowing down for days living high on the hog.
So I threw the eaten and half eaten bags out, put the remainder in a box together, set them on the shelf again, and hoped the mice had moved on to other houses.
I was mistaken.
Several months later I notice an empty bag of rice on the floor under the pantry shelves. I really, really, wanted to believe this was an errant bag I forgot to throw out. So what if there were fresh mouse droppings beside the box of rice? I like living in a bubble without mice.
Mistaken again.
Finally I pulled the box of rice down to have a look. And discovered more empty bags, and more mouse droppings. Plus we found rice on the washing machine, of all places. Not good. We had a hungry mouse. (Yeah, I hear you experienced mouse catchers snickering.)
I got out the 'ol HaveAHart trap and got ready to set it, but it was broken so we had to make a hardware store run. My dad was enlisted for this. Well, he came home with a
HaveAHart trap alright . . . the size of our cat! I pointed at the box where it said perfect for catching rats and small mammals.Another hardware run later and we had a mouse sized trap. Which I set. With peanut butter.
The next morning I check the trap, and lo and behold, we have a mouse! Success! We'd caught our mouse. I let it go in the field near our house (it almost scampered up my arm when I opened the trap!). But just to be sure, I re-set the trap for that night's mouse parties.
Day 2 we caught a second mouse. Okay . . . trap re-set.
Day 3 we caught Mouse #3. Not so funny anymore.
Day 4 . . . Mouse #4.
Day 5 . . . Mouse #5.Day 6 . . . No mouse! Had we trapped them all?
Day 7, today . . . Mouse #6!!! I'm getting tired of counting and taking pictures, so this one will remain anonymous.
What does this have to do with books, writing or publishing? I have no idea. But I knew the Mouse Saga deserved to be told. And it's not over . . .
P.S. All these photos are of different mice!
2 comments:
Wow. This year I've seen 3, caught 2 of them. What makes this odd is the fact that we have 7 cats in the house. Seriously, 7 cats and I have caught using a large cup 2 mice.
Wow, girl, that's insane! We usually get one or two mice just when the weather gets hot and just when it gets cold. Lasts about a week, and then they must leave because we rarely see droppings in the summer and deep winter.
Except... our air conditioner blew, so hubs cleaned the junky old leaves out from behind the unit so our maintenance guy wouldn't have a hard time of it... and behind the leaves is a large hole in the kitchen wall on the outside. You know, right behind where we sometimes find mouse droppings in the kitchen cabinets which are not insulated? And hubs is starting to find droppings periodically on the kitchen floor now. it's weird, it's like scraping the leaves away let the mice know where the hole is!
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