I was planning to write about something else today but so many people have contacted me about my mouse problem recently that I thought an update was needed. So…let me introduce you to the mouse. Actually, this is mouse number three. We have had four to date. Each got a personal ride to a field surrounded by woods. They all took off like a bullet train the second they realized they were free from the trap.I found out that the word mouse comes from a Sanskrit word that means thief. Totally understandable. We found a hunk of bread that had fallen from our bird’s cage in a cabinet near the fireplace. There were droppings there, too. We could locate the traps along the droppings trail. As mice are known to return to their surroundings, following the same path, I asked my husband, the mouse releaser and photographer, if it were possible we were trapping the same mouse.
“No,” he said. “They all looked different.”
He said one was small, another bigger, one black another mottled. Even mice have their own individual physical characteristics.
There was no mouse in the house this morning. We aren’t removing the traps any time soon, though, not until we have lots of mouse-free days. Our experience has been educational, I must say, and productive. I had been meaning to reorganize that cabinet for some time but just hadn’t gotten to it. And the pantry got a good cleaning. Quite a motivational prompting for something that weighs barely an ounce.
If you feel motivated to know more, here are some mouse facts:
www.buzzle.com/articles/facts-about-mice.html
http://a-z-animals.com/animals/mouse/
http://www.humanemousetrap.info/mouse-facts/
Do you have any mouse stories you’d like to share?
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Very cute, although I wouldn't want it in my house.
ReplyDeleteHave you found a hole? My exterminator is pretty good at pointing out possible points of entry. For example, he suggested I get weather stripping around my garage, "because otherwise you might get a rodent." Before he said that, I regularly saw chipmunks, and even once a cat, in my garage. Since I got the weather stripping, it's been all clear.
Yesterday we found a mouse of our own in our garage. I was about to dash out to work, and my 5-year-old son spotted him. Unfortunately, the mouse clearly wasn't well. The kids looked at me with those innocent eyes and asked me to rescue him. In a rush and not wanting a "house guest," what was I to do? The only thing I could: I dropped everything, gathered some items, and soon had him in a bed of old washcloths, next to another basket of paper strips (who knows what they prefer?) and supplied with water, milk, and cheese -- all to keep him warm and fed through the night. I had visions of the kids asking to keep him as a pet (at my husband's great dismay - we planned to take the mouse to a park or something somewhere), but "Mousey" was missing until this morning when my son, once again discovered him. Mousey had passed, but the kids took it well, and we progressed from a lesson of kindness toward animals to the cycle-of-life and that at least in his last moments he knew that he was loved.
ReplyDeleteYeah, mice are cute- outside. Our garage has multiple avenues of entry under the doors but I thought our house was pretty tight. I will check it out. Thanks, Ellen.
ReplyDeleteA. Lee, that sounds like a story for Matthew Quick and his wife Alicia Bessette on their kindness blog http://aliciabessette.com/blog/?p=119