A tapping in the night

Back at Christmas time, if you recall, Older Daughter surprised us with a culinary treat correlating with George C. Scott's "A Christmas Carol." (See this post to see what I'm talking about.)

As part of that fun gift to us, she included some chocolate coins ("half a crown") to represent the pay Scrooge gave the boy at the end of the story for fetching the poulterer on the next street over.

There were about six coins left over, and for the longest time these chocolate coins were simply stacked on top a little shelving unit in the kitchen.

Every so often a coin would disappear, but I didn't think anything of us. Doubtless someone simply enjoyed one as a treat.

Well, a couple weeks ago, I woke up in the very early morning to hear a persistent tap tap tappity tap. It was loud enough to wake me out of a sound sleep. It certainly didn't sound like anything Mr. Darcy was doing. What could be making the noise?

I got up, got dressed, and went to investigate. And what did I see?

I saw a mouse dragging one of the chocolate coins under the burners of our stove top. The cheeky little bugger kept getting the coin stuck and was banging it around, trying to get it loose. So that's where our chocolate coins were going!

This was just the latest proof of an indisputable fact: we had mice.

It's not that we didn't try getting rid of them. I tried a nontoxic folk remedy that was supposed to kill mice (baking soda mixed with cornstarch). It didn't work.

Then I put out poison. This didn't work either.

So finally we fetched all the mousetraps from the barn, and Don baited them and put them all over the place, especially in the pantry.

We caught the first mouse within five minutes.

And then we caught another within half an hour.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Seven mice in the span of twelve hours. After that, we caught no more mice ... for a week. Then yesterday, we caught one more. Eight mice.

Interestingly, Don dropped the dead mice off the edge of our porch to the ground below, and by the next day they were all gone.

Apparently the mice were manna from heaven for some animal.

I can't guarantee it, but I certainly hope that's the last of the mice.Today and tomorrow I'm giving the kitchen a deep clean. Meanwhile, those traps will stay set.

Building a better mousetrap

It's spring, which means mice in the house. We've been setting traps and getting rid of them before they can explode in population.

Younger Daughter found herself hosting a family of half-grown rodents in her bedroom. Oddly enough, they had apparently not yet developed the instinct to run away, so she's been able to catch them in ... a teacup.

That's all it took. Plop a teacup over the bewildered little beastie sitting in the middle of the floor, slide some cardboard underneath, and the mouse was caught.

She admits mice are cuuuuute -- but not in one's bedroom. Or any room, for that matter.

Using this same teacup, she managed to catch SIX half-grown mice over a period of 24 hours, which she released out by the woodpile (and yes, she washed the cup thoroughly). We caught five more mice in traps, and Lydia killed one more. So far so good: I think we won.

Prepper mice

Like many rural people, we have mice in our car.

This isn't anything unusual. They crawl up from underneath the chassis and clamber through the duct work, and the next thing you know the roll of toilet paper you keep in the back seat for emergency purposes is chewed to shreds. The presence of mice also lends a certain... let us say immediacy to unloading groceries.

The other day my husband, while investigating a mysterious clunking noise in the back (our car is getting old), lifted the panel that hides the spare tire. This is what he saw:

Note how neatly organized everything is. In this tray we have dog food, mixed with a few chocolate chips:

In this tray we have pasta and more dog food, padded with a bit of shredded toilet paper.

What can I say? We have prepper mice. Organized prepper mice.

Misplaced compassion?

(See UPDATE at bottom.)

This afternoon while cleaning upstairs, I came across a baby mouse in a never-used sink.

Our house used to be three separate apartments (believe it or not), so we have a small half-kitchen upstairs. We don't have running water to this sink and it's never used. The slick stainless steel sides meant this little fella couldn't get out once he'd fallen in. How long had he been there? No idea, of course, but he seemed very weak.

I scooped him up in an old cup...

...and carried him out to the barn, where he started to crawl away.

But I couldn't leave him there. He was nearly falling over, and he had his eyes closed. So I gently put him back in the cup and brought him inside, where I ensconced him in a plastic container with a capful of water and a few crumbs of chicken crumbles.

He started nibbling at the crumbles right away.

I took a pipette and put a drop of water from the cap onto the floor of the container, which ended up soaking some of the crumbles. The baby seemed to prefer these (moist plus softer, I guess).

I'll let him regain some strength before releasing him into the barn.

I'm fully aware of what pests mice are, but somehow I couldn't let this helpless little creature loose into a strange place without at least a fighting chance of survival.

No doubt he'll grow up big and strong and migrate back into the house, father a dozen litters, and plague me for years to come.

Such are the dangers of misplaced compassion...

UPDATE: The baby died. Oh well, at least he died with something in his belly.

Random pix

Some random shots from the last couple of weeks:

I took the camera and hit our pasture one day, trying to take a photo suitable for the front cover of the quarterly magazine I edit for the Purebred Dexter Cattle Association. This is the photo I used (our cow Ruby).

My folks are up visiting (staying in Coeur d'Alene for a couple of months) and they came over for dinner one evening. Older Daughter snapped a pic of my dad chuckling over a comic book.

Chickens on tires.

The girls discussing something in the barn.

Bumper sticker we saw in Spokane.

Another chuckle:

Some serious "awwww."

Building a better mousetrap. Older Daughter had a mouse in her room. So one night she decided to build a mousetrap using some books stacked stair-step fashion, with bits of cheese leading up the stairs. At the top were two folded pieces of paper laid lightly over a can, with a piece of cheese in the center. The idea is the mouse would step onto the paper and fall into the can.

It worked!!

What I want to know is, how can a four-day trip result in two weeks' worth of laundry?

A chickaree (a type of squirrel) in our barn (blurry shot, sorry).

We have a robin nesting in the rafters of our barn. Usually it's swallows who like to nest in rafters, but this is definitely a robin.

This is Snap, our rooster.

We've been having fewer eggs in the chicken coop lately. This could explain why.

Tossing tires with Jack's wonderful wife, Natalie.

Jack and Natalie's youngest. Oh so cute!

I don't know my snakes. Anyone? Gopher? Rat snake?

Alert!

Older Daughter is gradually papering the back of her bedroom door with our weekly church bulletins. Not your typical teenage wallpaper.

Explaining the intricacies of geometry (in a very messy room).

Moonset at dawn (behind a cloud of steam).

Sunset.