Mouse Hunt

I really felt like a crazy woman yesterday. Kaleb and I have colds and I was being lazy and just didn't feel like cleaning any more. I sat down and worked on a super sudoku puzzle I found while the boys played. I kept hearing a scratching noise, so I went in my kitchen to find out where the sound was coming from. There is a small space underneath the oven where the power cord runs. It has a grate on the front. I looked down and saw two little feet and a tiny little nose trying to squeeze it's way under the grate. Luckily for me, it didn't fit, which is a wonder because it was a tiny little mouse. I don't even want to think about how it got in there. About this time every year, at least one little mouse gets past my army of cats and wiggles it's way in. Oh, the joy of an old country home.

We have two different kinds of mouse traps. The black cat traps are supposed to be more humaine I suppose because they don't actully kill the mouse. Danny explained to me that these traps are for the good-hearted people that want to release the mouse outside after they catch it so that the cute little thing can get right back into your house and wreak havoc in your kitchen cabinets. I really don't understand this because these traps either give a mouse a free meal and then let it get away, or they catch their tiny little snouts and cause them to suffocate or starve...it happened...but that's a completely different story. The Victor brand is the really good kind that kill them instantly so they don't suffer at all...see I have a heart. I promise, it's really there. And, contrary to popular belief, mice like peanut butter better than cheese, so we put peanut butter on our traps.

I have a really hard time finding where to put these traps because I don't want little fingers or hands to get broken. I took the grate off of the stove and slid in a trap. I had to reset the darn thing three times because it barely fit through the slot and then it drops a little bit. Every time I dropped it, it went off. Danny told me to drop it softly...yeah...ok. I finally got it set and then put the grate back on because I didn't want it to escape. It didn't seem like it was going for the peanut butter, so I brought a couple of my cats in and removed the grate. It took a little while for the cats to notice that there was a mouse that had the gateway open to the rest of my house. When they did, they had a fun little game trying to reach in and grab the mouse and in the process set off the trap. Ooops. *No kitties were hurt in the hunting of this mouse.* The mouse got scared and ran behind the wall, where it no doubt came from and probably has access to other part of my house that I have no idea about. I guess I took the fun out of the hunt for the cats because as soon as he dissapeared, they got bored and had to go back outside.

I set the trap again and decided to go about my day and hope that the wonderful little mouse would want some yummy peanut butter. This was about 3 o'clock. I really cannot function when there is a mouse in my house and I know where it is. If I had more traps and no little boys running around, I would probably be more like Nathan Lane. When Danny got home at 9, I informed him that I still hadn't caught the mouse. We checked on the trap and the adorable little fuzz ball ate all the peanut butter and didn't set the trap off. I guess it needs a few more free meals before it's heavy enough to get caught. I took the grate off again to put more peanut butter on the trap. This time I watched it eat the peanut butter off of the trap without triggering it. Danny, the wonderful man that he is, played my game with me and fashioned "a long poking device" (sorry, FRIENDS sidetrack) so he could trigger the trap the next time the mouse came sniffing. It took a while because Danny had scared him, but he finally came out. Danny, with his steady hand, got ready and caught my baby mouse for me. I couldn't do it because my hands were too shaky and it scared the mouse when the metal made a scratching noise. He took it out to my kitties and gave it to the one that had helped me hunt for a few minutes earlier that day. Yay for hubbies and kitties.

So here's the end to my not so exciting, but the only thing that I have to write about because that's all I did yesterday story. :) I hope this is the only one for the year.