Not A Creature Was Stirring, Not Even The Mouse!

I live right next door to a conservation area. It is really nice to see deer leisurely walking and eating in our yard some mornings and evenings, as well as the occasional raccoon and badger, BUT there is a down side to this beauty right in our back yard....it carries a LARGE population of mice.

Of course, as you noticed in "my day" blog that I have two cats, and yes, while they are awesome and great to keep the mice population down, they tend to leave the remains. They are always so proud of their kills, also, that they bring them right to the bedroom door, so we can step on them as we first walk out in the morning.

My wonderful husband is usually the first one up (unless I have felt the need for a 5:00 bathroom break---and I am VERY careful to turn on the lights now, just in case----eeeeewwww!) and he usually picks up any stray parts that are lurking outside our door, and disposes of them.

Well, I came out just a few days ago and went in to wake Aydan as I usually do. I turned on the lights and shuffled into his room. As I was passing the stairway, I happened to glance down on the stair. Yes, sure enough---there it was---A DEAD MOUSE! Now, I must preface this with a brief declaration of the fact that I CAN NOT STAND MICE----ALIVE OR DEAD!

I mean, if there is one in my bedroom, I will stay in bed until someone has found it and removed it. I abhor the creatures---even those little ones in the pet store---something about their tails or something. Ugggghhhh. (shudder)

But I digress. I went to get the broom and the dust pan with the LONG handle to pick it up with. Aydan passed by me to get into the shower and I was there---squealing as I attempted to pick this dead whole mouse up. I JUST COULDN'T DO IT!

I went into the bathroom to explain it to Aydan, thinking that maybe I could talk HIM into picking it up, but he wanted nothing to do with it, so I went back to try again....

...AND IT WAS GONE!!...................................................


NOOOOOOOO, NOOOOOOOO..........NOT THAT!


Now, I know that you are thinking that the mouse was really alive, right? And that it had miraculously escaped?


But, no---that would be scary, but actually my wonderful cat, Shadow had decided that he wanted to play some more with the wee thing.

So, if you can picture this: I'm running around with the broom and dustpan---screaming at the cat to "DROP IT! DROP IT", yet everytime the cat came running at me with the darn thing, I would scream and jump up on something, and yell "DROP IT! DROP IT, SHADOW!"

There was one time when Shadow just sat there with that thing in its mouth and looked at me, like I had done some strange offensive thing. "What, me?" I thought. "You are the one with a half dead mouse in your mouth---playing, need I say it...CAT AND MOUSE with me!"

Well, he soon tired of our game and went prancing away and dropped the infernal rodent somewhere in the living room. I HAD to crawl around and look for it as fast as I could----just in case he came back and decided to take it up and run with it again. Meanwhile the time is ticking away and I yell for Aydan to get out of the shower and get dressed---because Mom is having a "mouse emergency" day.

I finally found the foul thing...right under my coffee table.

The proof is here: (And don't look at the dust and everything---we had just trimmed the tree the night before----geeze!)




BTW: I managed to scoop it up----squealing (me, NOT the mouse!) all the time, and threw it out the front door----where it hit the front of my house, bounced and fell on the ground, not far from the front door.

So....I'm just not going to look over there when I go somewhere.