Mouse Capades

This is our third cold season in Northern Indiana. Now there’s something that happens every fall. This thing happens in the South as well, but I don’t think as much. This thing that happens is: mice look for warm places to spend the winter.

Now, we live in a mobile home with fields all around us. Fields are where mice thrive, if you didn’t know. Hence the term, field mouse. :p

The first winter we were here, I freaked out at the number of mice I caught. Six! Six whole mice! That’s more mice then I caught in the first five years of our marriage! I was horrified!

Then last year, by some miracle…there were NO mice! Not a single one! I was pleasantly shocked! And I prayed that that would continue.

It didn’t.

I caught one mouse already before we went to Bermuda the beginning of September. That seemed pretty early, but I wasn’t too concerned. Then we got home, unpacked, settled back into life, and the invasion began!

One right after another! This past Sunday, the count was at Six. Six! In THREE weeks!

And the straw that broke the camels back was this: I got up Sunday morning and there were mouse droppings on the counter. This was the first time for mouse droppings on the counter and to say I was mad is an understatement! I set a couple traps, did some disinfecting and then we went to church. When we got home, the traps were still empty. So we took a nap.

When we got up from our nap, I went to the kitchen to make some supper and heard some rather unpleasant noises. I looked under the sink, and sure enough, a mouse was in the trap…and he was a fighter!

After what seemed like forever, I was entirely too grossed out by the continual noises, so I got a bag and went to the cabinet with the intention of just throwing the mouse, trap and all, outside. As I reached in to get it, another mouse ran across the back of the cabinet!

Ten minutes later, he was dead. And within 24 hours, I had caught 2 more!

My initial response to the escapade of Sunday was a bit unsubmissive: Babe! I am getting a cat!

I did fix that initial response and asked nicely. Thankfully, my husband’s biggest fear is mice and he actually likes cats, so he agreed rather readily.

Also, thankfully a friend had terribly cute kittens that were ready to leave mama and she very graciously offered me one.

She’s still little and won’t be much of a mouse hunter for a little while, but I’m hoping the scent of her will deter at least some! (Is it evil that I thought about making her sleep under the kitchen sink for a while :))

And that, my friends, is the whole story of the mouse capades.

At least for now…