Mouse Tailes!

We have two cats, specifically to be mousers. With an acre of land and being surrounded by small ranches and one acre lots, there are plenty of mice and voles to go around. Friday, our boy cat, is a great mouser. He loves to hunt and will often leave his token on the step beside the house, like a good cat should do. Gracy is Friday's sister. She is great at catching the mice, too, but apparently she's politically involved with human rights and feels that it is inhumane to kill the mouse once she has caught it. For Gracy, catching the mouse is a game, not a hunt. She will catch it and then proceed to play with it. On occasion, I have seen her pass the mouse off to Friday when she is done with her fun.

The biggest problem is that Gracy likes to bring her toys in the house. Before I go to bed, the cats typically want to come in and will meow at the back door. I have learned the sound of a meow with a full mouse when Gracy has a live mouse in her mouth! But even without being able to SEE the mouse, I make Gracy meow to me with her mouth open every night before I let her in. This is because, one night Gracy had a small mouse in her mouth. I told her no and she walked away with her treasure, but was back at the door only seconds later. I could not see anything in her mouth, and figured she had just let the mouse go, so I let her in. Once in the house, she opened her mouth and out popped a little mouse. No, I am not kidding! Even the mouse's long tail had been neatly tucked inside for easy deception of the "master." Gracy then proceeded to play with the mouse in the house. The problem with this is there are plenty of nooks and crannies in which the mouse could hide safely away from Gracy's banter. That little mouse disappeared. GRRRR! This is not the only time this has happened. I honestly don't know how many mice Gracy has brought into the house. With Friday in the house at night, he does his best to hunt down Gracy's toys. Twice now he has left a dead mouse for me in my bedroom, beside the bathroom door.

Yesterday morning was a typical Sunday morning... or it started out that way. I sat in my bedroom working on finishing touches for my Sunday School lesson when Gracy tried to climb in my closet. I don't let her nap in there since she tends to leave a pile of fur, so I kicked her out of the room. I sat back down and next thing I knew, I heard a scratching sound coming from my closet. I look over and there's a mouse climbing through my clothes that are neatly hanging in the closet. AAHHH! No, I am not afraid of mice. I just don't like them in my house, leaving their poop everywhere and chewing things apart. I tried to catch the mouse in a container, but it was too fast and got away. So, I pulled out some glue traps, stuck an M&M on each one and put them in different spots in my closet in hopes to catch the mouse. Off to church we go.... LATE due to mouse hunting. I hate being late.

When I got home from church, I went to my closet right away to check the mouse traps. The one at the bottom of the closet was gone. So the mouse went for the M&M bait, got partially stuck, and drug the trap away. Just my luck. This didn't help my mood at all. But, a few minutes later, I hear Gracy, meowing with her mouthful. Recognizing that sound, I was excited. I praised her, and she set the mouse down. I was ready! I through my hands over the mouse expecting to have it trapped. Much to my chagrin, the mouse ran between my fingers, faster than the speed of light. I guess I must have blinked, because I didn't even see which way the mouse ran. In catching the mouse, Gracy got the glue trap stuck on her long fur. Sara got the scissors, and we gave Gracy a haircut, freeing her from the glue trap. Elijah said he saw the mouse go into the bathroom, so that's where I headed next. We already had a mouse trap in there from when Gracy had last brought a mouse in the house (maybe this one) and asked Elijah to go get some cheese! I figured we'd have that mouse in no time with fresh cheese on the trap. As I set the trap on the floor, I saw a tail sticking out from under a towel. There's the mouse! This time determined this mouse is NOT getting away, I cupped over the top of the towel where the mouse was hiding. It tried to escape, but I had it. I hollered excitedly for Elijah to open the toilet. I grabbed the mouse by the tail, dropped it into the toilet and flushed. I think there's a scene like this from the movie "Flushed Away." The mouse was swimming as fast as it possibly could, trying to keep it's head above water. Elijah said it looked like the mouse was running on a treadmill, it was flapping those little legs so fast. He was worried the mouse would jump out, so he closed the lid. When we opened it, the mouse was gone.

VICTORIOUS! Finally. I could rest in peace the rest of the day knowing I got the mouse that was in my closet.

I wish my mouse tailes were over; however, I know we have a mouse living in the cupboards in the kitchen. It appeared in the silverware drawer this week when I reached in to get a fork. There's another in the TV room, that also got stuck on a glue trap and dragged the trap away. I haven't found it yet. One scurried in the front door last week when the little boys were playing. Who knows where it went. And yet another that was spotted in Elijah's room this morning. The general consensus is that glue traps are only good for catching random spiders or curious little boys who don't know what they are. So today we are taking stock in the old fashioned mouse trap in hopes to actually catch the mice and not leave them roaming our house.