Two Mice

I had a restless night.

The ringing of the cell phone woke me up this morning. That was my cue to call Attila with FaceTime. We had a lovely chat, and both agreed, the visual element adds a lot to the interaction, the visual is important. All too soon it was time for Attila to sign off and finish his preparations for work.

I puttered a bit, then decided to see if I could go back to sleep. I crawled into bed, and then the computer dinged. I knew that ding, it has a short history! Yesterday, Terra messaged me in the morning with, “you home”? I replied yes, and then realized she was standing at the front door. I hadn’t heard her knock, but I did hear the ding on the computer. We had a laugh about that.

So this morning, when the computer dinged, I thought she just might be at the front door. I jumped out of bed quick like, and texted her back that yes, I was up.

And I was close, she was on her way. What happened was, she was coming off the night shift this morning and was on her way home. She passed the hospital, and saw a vehicle that looked just like Tank going into the Emergency parking lot. She thought it might be me, but didn’t know my license plate number, so she texted and drove over to the little house. She was very relieved to see Tank sitting innocently in the driveway. It wasn’t me at the hospital. My girl worries about me, bless her soul.

She and I had a nice chat. While we were chatting, I checked the hall cupboard to see if I had caught any mice. Two! One in each trap. I asked Terra if she wanted to take care of them for me, and she most emphatically declined, :). I closed the cupboard door and we chatted a bit more, then Terra headed home to get some sleep.

After she left I finished sipping my coffee. Then I put some newspaper down just in front of the cupboard. I donned a pair of latex gloves, opened the cupboard and removed the mice from the traps, flushing them down the toilet. Attila has always done this with dead mice, but this was my first attempt at it. Usually I bury them, but that is not practical in the winter. The mice had not had a chance to touch the actual bait, cheese, so I reset the traps, put them back into the cupboard, and shut the door.

The thing I like about the traps is that they are instant oblivion for the mouse, no pain, no warning. It is more humane than the sticky traps, or the electric traps that I looked at. I don’t like mice, but I do not wish them to suffer.

I hope that is the last of the mice, but I am not optimistic. For today at least, I am done dealing with them.

We will continue to look for places where they might be coming in, and take measures to prevent their annual entry in the autumn. I was just reading about mouse-proofing a home, and am going to inspect the perimeter of the house, looking for openings 1/4 inch or larger. We obviously have missed an opening, somewhere!

It just occurred to me that my restless nights might well be a result of the rustlings of our unwanted guests, and last night the sudden snaps of their demise. I am a very, very light sleeper, so it is entirely possible that 3:00 a.m. is the magic hour for mice! That is the hour I usually awaken during the night, for no apparent reason. Just a theory.

To distance myself from my early morning mouse duty, I surfed the web for a while and puttered around the kitchen. Then I was ready to prepare breakfast. This morning it was lemon yogurt. I found the lemon yogurt on sale at the grocery store last weekend, when Attila and I were buying supplies. I love citrus flavours, and lemon is my favourite, so I bought a tub. I was skeptical, it didn’t sound very nice to me. Now it is my new favourite yogurt flavour!

Having gathered together vehicle related items, like a pen and notebook, a box of tissues, some blankets, a cooler with crackers kept in it for emergencies, snow brushes, snow shovel, and ratchet straps, they were all carted out and stowed away in Tank. Then, following the instructions in the manual, the seat was adjusted to perfection, to avoid injury from air bags, lots of warnings on that one.

Then Tank and I were off for our first adventure. We visited the grocery store. Very exciting. Milk and bread and pasta and vitamin pills were the only items on the list, but somehow I walked out of there with a cart full of items, which fit loosely into the back of Tank, where they rattled around all the way home.

It is colder today, still cloudy and grey. The sun makes few appearances, so sending out an all out, no holds barred, invitation seems appropriate. Any time sun, you are welcome to pay a visit any time!

Worldly Distractions

Weather

0°C
Date: 2:00 PM EST Wednesday 26 November 2014
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.2 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: -0.4°C
Dewpoint: -6.6°C
Humidity: 63%
Wind: NNE 9 km/h
Wind Chill: -4

[It is below freezing and snowing at the country house!]

Quote

“I truly feel that there are as many ways of loving as there are people in the world and as there are days in the life of those people.”
Mary S. Calderone

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Bex

I was thinking that along with those crackers in Tank, for emergencies, maybe a new unopened jar of peanut butter might be good… protein if you ever have to spend any time in the Tank and can’t get out.

Steve-Paul

The new orthodoxy seems to be: don’t give mice cheese. Peanut butter is what they love. But I’ve never had any luck with pb and cheese seems pretty reliable. Norwegian Jarlsberg, anybody?

NORA

Maggie the mouse catcher. Burial at sea? Is it possible that the mice may clog things up? You could recycle them as a food source for the wood creatures if so. Sticky traps are so cruel. I won’t even use them for bugs.

I like lemon yogurt too. It is so clean tasting. My favs are café and lemon. I can get away with a few TBS of café yogurt! But it is not the same as hot café.

Your girls worry about you and that is the way I think it should be.

I have read that a candle in glass (or even just a candle) can be a good heat source and light when one is trapped or stranded. I have one in our car winter supplies. Soon to go into Mercury. I’m more concerned about tornadoes then winters.

TopsyTurvy (Teri)

My favorite yogurt is blueberry, but I’ll happily substitute most berry yogurts (though I’d prefer no seeds). When it comes to lemon, lemon curd and lemon meringue pies are the best!

Glad to hear that Tank now has a safety/emergency kit!

Bex

I’ll have to do some research on the subject of yoghurt, because I love it too, especially the sinful Greek Yoghurt. However, even though I always associate eating yoghurt with doing a favor for your tummy (good bacteria, and all that), I remember back many years ago when I worked in a Skilled Nursing/Rehabilitation Hospital – I was the secretary for medical records and we were situated right next door to the Cardiac Center. A woman ran the Cardiac Center (her name is escaping me right now!) and I would listen in as she talked to her patients about what they should be doing to be heart-healthy, and what they should NOT be doing.

I remember one time I could hear her lecture about what not to eat, and one patient said she had been eating her yoghurt and asked if that was ok. The Director scolded her and said that no, it was not OK to be eating yoghurt, or much of any dairy products! I was shocked by that, but have, in the years since then, often heard and read that dairy is better eliminated from the diet, that it just causes troubles in a lot of people for various reasons. The Director said “well what IS yoghurt? It’s dairy, and haven’t I told you all to eliminate all dairy from your diets?”

This Director was a young woman, a mother, a wife, and a highly credentialed Registered Nurse. I admired her greatly while working around her. Even though I never followed her advice (I wasn’t her patient, after all), I always thought about that little talk she had with her Cardiac patients… and tucked it away in the back of my brain… so it’s worth a thought… it’s worth investigating.

TopsyTurvy (Teri)

That’s an interesting story, Bex, as it seems to fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom of the times, that dairy is good for you. I wonder, since this was a heart health person, if they were concerned about fats? As much as there’s been an obsession with milk over the last decades, there’s also been a paranoia about fats. But now suddenly things are turning around.

The powers that be are now beginning to admit that you need healthy fats in your diet and that low fat items are laden with unhealthy sugars to give food more flavor. And just the other day I was reading an article that drinking milk wasn’t a boon for adults. For men it wasn’t a real problem but for women a large study actually showed an increase in the incidence of pelvic fractures among women who drank milk.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see how things unfold. Seems best to stick with the advice “Everything in moderation.”

NORA

Hi Maggie,

A safety kit would be the same for any emergency. I’m hoping in the event of a tornado the car would be spared!

The dairy I do is almost all organic. I follow a woman who did her own research and she states that dairy has to be at least 2% or the bones will not absorb it. There is a real need for healthy fats and bone health.