There are some summer jobs that I just don’t want to do. One of them is catching mice that scurry across the floor in the late evening hours. I don't mind the ones that do it when I don't know they are there, but when they run across by bathroom floor in full sight, then I feel left with no alternative.
If I have to do this job it will not be catch and release. And for that catch job, I prefer the electronic devices that go into an electrical outlet. They emit a high pitched sound that the mice don’t like but some of the humans I live with can hear that sound, so there is a big no to using those devices.
Doral likes to use the black sticky traps that glue mice to the pad as they try to run across it. I don’t like to catch my mice and still have them live when I go to take them outside. Plus, as you know, this year Alice got her hair caught in one of those traps.
That leaves me with the third choice, the old fashion wooden trap that gives a quick snap.
My commitment to ridding the house of mice began, but I was thinking about the traps ($2 each at Canadian Tire) and wondering if I could use them again.
Will a second mouse smell the fear of death if there is any scent of the previous mouse left on the trap?
I got on some sterile gloves and took my traps outside and sterilized them before putting them to use again.
The children followed me.
All of them wanted to try on the gloves.
None of them wanted to take the dead mice out of traps, clean the traps or reset them.
Sometimes there are jobs that only grandmothers can do.
Arta
If I have to do this job it will not be catch and release. And for that catch job, I prefer the electronic devices that go into an electrical outlet. They emit a high pitched sound that the mice don’t like but some of the humans I live with can hear that sound, so there is a big no to using those devices.
Doral likes to use the black sticky traps that glue mice to the pad as they try to run across it. I don’t like to catch my mice and still have them live when I go to take them outside. Plus, as you know, this year Alice got her hair caught in one of those traps.
That leaves me with the third choice, the old fashion wooden trap that gives a quick snap.
My commitment to ridding the house of mice began, but I was thinking about the traps ($2 each at Canadian Tire) and wondering if I could use them again.
 |
| ... I am trying not to look afraid here ... What is there to be afraid of? ... a little bleach in a dish and I am ready to set the trap line again ... |
I got on some sterile gloves and took my traps outside and sterilized them before putting them to use again.
The children followed me.
All of them wanted to try on the gloves.
None of them wanted to take the dead mice out of traps, clean the traps or reset them.
Sometimes there are jobs that only grandmothers can do.
Arta
You have blogged what I thought was 5he unbloggable. I still can bring back a sense of dread by recalling the children saying of the mouse from the day before still visible I the grass, it's moving! The more accurate description was it was being moved by bugs who were doing their part in the cycle of life.
ReplyDeleteGlen told me that if I would put the mouse I had caught outside, that a bird or other animal would come and take it.
ReplyDeleteSo the kids and I put it beside one certain fern frond so that we could know if it were gone or not.
So yes, after a couple of days, and we were putting yet another mouse in the same place, they did think that the first was moving. And it was behind moved by all of those bugs.
Nature had taken its course. I looked, but didn't want to really investigate. I was too interested in getting the trap clean and set again. I think I missed a big opportunity to linger and watch nature at work.
Maybe next time I will slow down and take a better look.