Tag Archives: mice

Of Mice and Men

10 Oct

On one of the blogs I follow http://ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com/ the writer tells us of the time her brother Mahlon rescued a chipmunk from a barn cat. The chipmunk raced up his pants, over his coat, and perched on his hat!

And that reminded me . . .

The Squire and I are both avid animal lovers, We will feed and/or rescue anything that comes along, from foxes to deer to racoons.  I’ll scoop up spiders and put them out. The Squire swears if I came upon a giraffe in the woods I’d tie a bow around its neck and stand it in the stairwell.

We used to keep our cat food in a large kitchen trash can, and from time to time a mouse would fall in and be unable get back out. Normally we would carry the bin out to the woodpile and tilt it over so the critter could hop out. And then run really fast so we could get back inside before the wee beastie arrived before us.

One morning there was a little fellow in the bin, and because he was so tiny and it was so cold outside, I decide to let him out inside the house. If you try to catch a mouse, they will dash wildly all over the place, but if you put your hand in and wait, they will hop on and let you close your hand over them. So, I did and the mouse did.

But when I moved my hand the silly critter ran – up the inside of my housecoat sleeve and out the collar. He sat on my shoulder and we just stared at each other for a few seconds before he leapt down and ran under the furnace.  It was hard to tell which of us was the most surprised.

Tags: , ,

Revolting Developments

24 Aug

For the last eon or so, The Squire and I (mostly The Squire) have been working on remodeling the kitchen.

Yesterday morning I opened the drawer to grab a clean dishcloth and discovered We Have Mice. Lots and lots of mice. (Or, perhaps, just a few, but they were very busy.)  All three drawers in that cabinet had to be emptied and wiped down with ammonia and water, and every dish cloth and tea towel I own had to be washed with bleach and hot water.

One of life’s mysteries – I get out a clean dish cloth every morning and use it to wipe the counters and the stove, and then it goes into the laundry. Why, oh why, does every single one look as if The Squire borrowed it to check the oil in the car?

Several weeks ago The Squire had to pull up part of the bathroom floor and repair a leaky toilet. We both tried to convince ourselves that the odor was dissipating, but we finally had to admit that it not only wasn’t going away, but was actually getting worse.

And so once again he had to pull up carpet and floor boards, put a mirror and flashlight into the crawl space, and discovered that in the process of repairing the toilet, the pipe that connects the commode to the septic tank had come loose. No real damage done, but the aroma was overwhelming, to say the least. One more trip to Lowe’s for yet another wax seal, and the job was completed.

I do not move around much when I sleep. I have bursitis in both hips, so I really can’t sleep on my side, and I find the best position is flat on my back, with one leg or the other pulled up like a flamingo. I can sleep all night, slide out of bed and smooth the covers and you’d never know I’d ever been there. Today when I was hanging out the laundry, I found a large worn spot right in the middle of the bottom sheet, just about where my bottom rests. Apparently, runching back and forth is harder on the sheets and the thrashing about The Squire does.  Fortunately, I have a piece of percale left from making costumes, so I can mend it.

Which is a darned sight easier than fixing toilets.

Tags: , , ,