Mouse Trouble

Literally every single night Maia Louise sits by the radiator in the corner of the dining room, waiting and watching, on the off-chance a stray mouse will climb up the pipes from the cellar and make its way into the house. She's done this every single night since one lousy mouse did this ages ago. Talk about stubborn. Well, her persistence finally paid off as one very chilly little mouse recently made the mistake of climbing up those pipes. And of course once it did, all hell broke loose. The cat grabbed the mouse and did what cats do to them, the boys went berserk because the cat was going nuts. I dove at the men to get them out of the way while Griffin cornered the cat and tried to get the poor mouse away from her so we could let it go outside. The dogs were thrilled that the cat was being both yelled at and shaken and insisted on being involved because they love when Maia gets in trouble (after all, what self-respecting dog doesn't love a good cat bashing?). The noise level was absolutely insane for quite some time with animals running pell mell all around the downstairs chasing mice, chasing cats and dodging humans. I finally managed to corral the boys behind a barricade at the foot of the foyer stairs, which of course only made them bark more, -and this was just pure luck- the now bleeding mouse got away and went right back down that pipe on its own. It probably figured it was far better off taking its chances out in the cold and rain of that night than to stay in this madhouse. It took another 20 minutes to get Edison to stop barking at everyone in a stern, lecturing voice about how all this was totally uncalled for. Edison is quite a persnickety little dog.

And then, less than a week later: another mouse. I knew there was a mouse in the dining room again as the cat was on alert and Bram was running around and around the table and chairs frantically sniffing the carpet, intently focused on the hunt. I couldn't find it though, which isn't a surprise given how tiny a field mouse is and the fact that with nothing but period lighting in our house, it's virtually impossible to even see your hand before your face after sundown. Three hours later I found Bram in the dining room, growling his hilarious little helium growl at David's Gibson propped in a corner. I picked the guitar up and sure enough, there was a little field mouse hunkered down behind it, bum against the baseboard, freaking out. I called Griffin down to help me. On went two pairs of rubber dishwashing gloves and out came a little bag in which to place the mouse for its trip back outdoors. I moved the guitar and Griffin grabbed the thing, plopped it into the bag and we both went outside together to let it go. Griffin set the bag down, the mouse came out onto the lawn, briefly looked surprised to find itself out there in the cold, and took off running with absolutely no hesitation around the side of the house, through the shade garden beneath my kitchen windows, up our ancient fieldstone foundation and right back into the house between those stones. It took it less than three seconds and the damn thing was back inside the warm house well before Griffin and I even reached the back steps, let alone got back indoors ourselves. I half expected to see it already up and out of the cellar, back in the toasty dining room, with a very tiny but smug and satisfied look on its face.

Photo courtesy of Mazart on flickr.