On Throw Back Thursday:
Seven years ago when my cat alerted me to a mouse under the heat duct, I knew in my head that there’s never just one mouse. But my heart refused to listen and I said to myself, “Of course there’s only one mouse, and when I catch that one I’m done.”
Hah! Every fall I’m reminded that there are victories but in a 111 year old house you’re never done. Thankfully there are so few mice this fall that Emmalina has not noticed them. Does this mean there are none or that she’s too old to care?
On Throw Back Thursday, here’s how naive I used to be about mice. It started with Mouse in the House and followed up with The Observer Effect.
p.s. The photo at top is seven years hold. Here’s a recent one of Emmy, 12 years old now, playing with her treat ball.
(photos by Kate St. John)
Our house is only about 15 years old but was not built well, so we have continual mice problems. Sadly, our best mouser died unexpectedly in October (he was only 10). But last night one of the girls ran violently toward the wall between the TV and the bookcase and her sister came over to join her. When they both started staring under the bookcase I figured we had an invader. There is about an inch of space between the bookcase and the wall and with a flashlight I could see the mouse’s tail and backend jammed into the corner. I tapped him a few times with a yardstick and he ran further under the bookcase but kept well out of the reach of the girls. I gave up after about half an hour and went to bed, leaving the girls at the bookcase. I came down this morning half expecting to find a dead mouse, but didn’t see anything.
Kate had mentioned in her throwback stories about worrying about the smell of a dead mouse. About a month before our orange cat died, I noticed he was sitting and staring under the stove, so I got the yardstick (my go-to reaching tool) and did a sweep under the stove, expecting a mouse to run out. What I got, however, was a dead mouse (no doubt fatally injured by the orange cat). He must have been there at least a day or two because he was stiff, but there wasn’t any smell. Not sure if we would have smelled something eventually if I hadn’t found him.
It is worth mentioning that the white footed mouse is the main carrier of Lyme disease & the deer tick. I personally wouldn’t practice the catch & release of mice others mention in replies to the older posts. Care should be used when disposing & handling mice you catch. There is probably a safe way to dispose of the mice, I’ll have to study up on it. If I catch one in the house, it goes in the wood stove, so any ticks won’t survive. I have traps outside a door, when I catch one there I’ve been tossing them into the forest. There is probably a better way, something that eliminates any ticks on them. Every little bit has to help.